Louisiana Carries Out First Execution With Nitrogen Gas

Louisiana used nitrogen gas to put a man to death Tuesday evening for a killing decades ago, marking the first time the state has used the method as it resumed executions after a 15-year hiatus. Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was pronounced dead at 6:50pm at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, authorities said, adding the nitrogen gas had flowed for 19 minutes during what one official characterized as a "flawless" execution, the AP reports.

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

• Hoffman was convicted of the murder of Mary "Molly" Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive who was killed the day before Thanksgiving in 1996. At the time of the crime, Hoffman was 18. He has since spent much of his adult life at the Angola penitentiary in rural southeast Louisiana, where he was executed Tuesday evening.
• After court battles earlier this month, attorneys for Hoffman had turned to the Supreme Court in last-ditch hopes of halting the execution. Hoffman's lawyers had unsuccessfully argued that the nitrogen gas procedure— which deprives a person of oxygen—violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The man's lawyers, in a last-ditch appeal, also argued the method would infringe on Hoffman's freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to death. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 in declining to step in.

• On Tuesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation allowing executions using nitrogen gas, making hers the fifth state to adopt the method. Arkansas currently has 25 people on death row. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized, but not used, the execution method.
• Hoffman, who was working as a parking lot attendant, kidnapped Elliott at gunpoint in New Orleans. Prosecutors said he forced her to drive to a remote area, raped her, and forced her to walk down a dirt path. "Her death march ultimately ended at a small, makeshift dock at the end of this path, where she was forced to kneel and shot in the head, execution style," prosecutors said. "Ms. Elliott likely survived for a few minutes after being shot, but she was left on the dock, completely nude on a cold November evening, to die."
• "Molly was a cherished person who missed out on motherhood, a promising and successful career, and a life in the country on the property we bought together," her husband, Andy Elliott, told USA Today last week. "Hers was a life that was so full of hope and promise for a beautiful future. The loss of Molly is a scar we will forever carry, and it will never heal."

(More execution stories.)