Louisiana man executed despite looking for a last minute court ruling arguing that the nitrogen gas method violated his religious rights

Baton Rouge, Louisiana – Louisiana used nitrogen gas to kill a man on Tuesday night during a massacre decades ago, marking the first time the State has used the method as executions resumed after a 15 -year parenthesis.

Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, refused to give a final statement before the gas began to flow and was subsequently declared dead at 6:50 pm in the penitentiary of the state of Louisiana. The authorities said that nitrogen gas flowed for 19 minutes during what an official called an “impeccable” execution, although a witness spoke of the inmate convulsing during the process.

It was the fifth time that nitrogen gas was used in the US. After four executions for the same method, all in Alabama. Three other executions, by lethal injection, are scheduled this week, in Arizona on Wednesday and Florida and Oklahoma on Thursday.

Hoffman was convicted of Mary “Molly” Elliott, a 28 -year -old advertising executive who was killed in New Orleans. At the time of crime, Hoffman was 18 years old and since then he has spent much of his adult life in the penitentiary in the southeast rural of southeastern Louisiana, where he was executed Tuesday night.

After the battles of the Court earlier this month, Hoffman’s lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court with the last hope of stopping the execution. Last year, the court refused to intervene in the first execution of nitrogen hypoxia of the nation, in Alabama.

Hoffman’s lawyers had argued without success that the nitrogen gas procedure, which deprives an oxygen person, violates the prohibition of the eighth amendment on the cruel and unusual punishment. The lawyers of man, in a last appeal, also argued that the method would violate Hoffman’s freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments before death.

Louisiana officials maintained the method is painless. They also said it was time for the State to give justice as promised to the families of the victims after a decade and a half pause, one brought in part by an inability to ensure lethal injects.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 in the decrease in intervening. A judicial statement said that four judges would have blocked the execution. Judge Neil Gorsuch explained in a brief dissent that he thought that Hoffman should have the opportunity to press his claim for religious freedom in a lower court. The three liberal judges did not explain their votes.

Hours before at a hearing, the 19th Judicial Court of the Judicial District Richard “Chip” Moore also refused to stop the execution. He put on the side of the state lawyers who had argued that the arguments based on the religion of man fell under the jurisdiction of a federal judge who had already ruled on them, according to local media.

Under the Louisiana protocol, which is almost identical to that of Alabama, the authorities had previously said that Hoffman would be tied to a stretcher before a full -faced respirator mask is strongly adjusted to him. The pure nitrogen gas was pumped to the mask, which forced it to breathe and deprive it of the oxygen necessary to maintain body functions.

The protocol requested that the gas be administered for at least 15 minutes or five minutes after the heart rate of the inmate reaches a flat line indication in the EKG, which is longer.

Each inmate killed death using Nitrogen in Alabama seemed to shake and gasp for different degrees during their executions, according to media witnesses, including a reporter of Associated Press. Alabama state officials said the reactions were involuntary movements associated with oxygen deprivation.

Alabama used the lethal gas to kill Kenneth Eugene Smith last year, marking the first time a new method was used in the United States since the lethal injection was introduced in 1982.

Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma specifically authorize the execution by nitrogen hypoxia, according to the records compiled by the death penalty information center. Arkansas was added to the list on Tuesday.

In search of resuming executions, the Legislature dominated by the Republican Party of Louisiana expanded the approved death penalty methods last year to include nitrogen and electrocution hypoxia. The lethal injection was already in place.

On Tuesday, the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, signed legislation allowing executions using nitrogen gas, which makes his own the fifth state to adopt the method. Arkansas currently has 25 people in the death corridor.

In recent decades, the number of executions at the national level has decreased sharply amid legal battles, a shortage of lethal inject drugs and reduced public support for capital punishment. That has led most states to abolish or pause to carry out the death penalty.

On Tuesday afternoon, a small group of execution opponents celebrated a vigil outside the rural prison of southeastern Louisiana in Angola, where state executions are carried out. Some fainted cards with photos of a smiling Hoffman and planned a Buddhist reading and “peace meditation.”

Attorney General Liz Murrill said he hopes that at least four people will be executed this year in Lousiana. Before Hoffman’s execution, she said that “justice will finally be served” by killing him.