Oklahoma lawmakers voted Thursday to reinstate the gas chamber as a backup execution method to lethal injection.
The Oklahoma Senate voted 41-0 in favor of HB 1879, which legalizes execution by nitrogen hypoxia. Said by supporters to be more humane than using gases that cause suffocation, nitrogen hypoxia causes death when nitrogen gas pumped into the chamber depletes the oxygen supply in the blood.
"It just goes to show you how hell-bent they are on killing people," Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma death row inmate whose lawsuit on lethal injection will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court later this month, told The Huffington Post after the vote. "If they can gas them, use lethal injection -- it should really scare everyone out there that they're so bent on this."
The bill
was approved by the House in March, and now goes to Gov. Mary Fallin (R) for signature. Reached by The Huffington Post Thursday, a gubernatorial spokesman declined to comment on the legislation until the governor's office has reviewed the measure.
Lethal injection is still the primary execution method in Oklahoma and all 31 other states that have the death penalty. The nitrogen gas chamber would be employed as a secondary method should lethal injection drugs become unavailable, or in the event the state's protocol is deemed unconstitutional when
the Supreme Court examines its legality later this month.
Rep. Mike Christian (R-Oklahoma City) who sponsored HB 1879 after reading
a 2014 Slate article, told The Huffington Post in March that the nitrogen hypoxia method was "revolutionary."
"If Oklahoma is a state that does executions, we can find a better, humane way to carry them out," he said.
"No physician is an expert in killing, and medicine doesn’t position itself intentionally in taking a life," Zivot said. "There’s no therapeutic use of nitrogen gas, and there’s no way to ethically or practically test if nitrogen gas is a humane alternative."
Stakes like Oklahoma are increasingly pushing forward backup methods to lethal injection as it faces legal pressure and supply challenges. Stores of the lethal injection chemicals on which states used to rely
have dwindled in recent years as European and U.S. manufacturers cut off supply or pull their drugs from the market.
Source: Huffington Post, Kim Bellware, April 9, 2015
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