Louisiana carries out first execution in 15 years Tuesday night
WEST FELICIANA PARISH, La. (WAFB) - Louisiana carried out its first execution in 15 years on Tuesday evening, March 18, at Angola State Prison in West Feliciana Parish.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was put to death using nitrous gas, which replaces oxygen with nitrogen and causes death by suffocation. Officials said the coroner pronounced Hoffman dead at 6:50 p.m.
Hoffman was strapped to a gurney and fitted with a respirator mask, similar to those used in industrial work. Pure nitrogen gas was pumped into the mask.
“It was flawless,” said Gary Westcott, the secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections. “It went about as good as we expected it to be. We had no problems.”
Nitrogen gas had previously only been used four times for executions, all of them in the state of Alabama, according to the Associated Press.
The execution faced multiple legal hurdles before ultimately being carried out.
Earlier Tuesday morning, a district court judge in Baton Rouge dissolved a temporary restraining order that blocked the execution. The restraining order was issued until the judge could preside over a hearing regarding whether the method of execution violated Hoffman’s religious freedoms under the Preservation of Religious Freedom Act. Hoffman claimed that nitrogen hypoxia interfered with his religious right as a Buddhist to do “meditative breathing” as he was put to death.
The district court judge sided with the Louisiana Department of Corrections.
Tuesday afternoon, Louisiana’s state Supreme Court denied an appeal, while the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to block the execution.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill defended the state’s decision to use nitrogen hypoxia, arguing that it was adopted after difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections.
Officials said that Hoffman was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Mary “Molly” Elliot in St. Tammany Parish. At the time of the murder, Hoffman was 18, while Elliot was 28.
“This is the law in Louisiana and we carried out the law of Louisiana,” Murrill said. “Molly Elliott’s immediate family members did not oppose this moving forward. They were grateful to have finality. What was frustrating to them was that it took 30 years.”
According to court documents, Hoffman admitted to kidnapping Elliot from a parking garage in New Orleans. Officials said he forced the victim to drive him to an ATM to withdraw money and then take him to St. Tammany Parish. Hoffman then raped her and shot her execution style on a dock near the Middle Pearl River, according to case details shared by the Governor’s Office.
Authorities said that a duck hunter discovered Elliot’s body by the Middle Pearl River on Thanksgiving Day in 1996. They said that she was identified by her husband.
Hoffman was found guilty of first-degree murder and rape by a jury. The jury also unanimously recommended a sentence of death, finding the offense was committed in an “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner.”
As of Tuesday, March 18, Louisiana has more than 60 inmates on death row. The state has carried 29 executions since 1976, including Tuesday’s execution of Hoffman.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry released the following statement following Tuesday’s execution:
The following statement was released by Hoffman’s attorney, Cecelia Kappel:
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