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U.S. | Execution by nitrogen hypoxia doesn’t seem headed for widespread adoption as bills fall short and nitrogen producers object

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The day after Alabama carried out the first-known US execution using nitrogen gas, its attorney general sent a clear message to death penalty states that might want to follow suit: “Alabama has done it, and now so can you.” Indeed, in the weeks immediately following the January execution of Kenneth Smith, it appeared a handful of states were listening, introducing bills that would adopt the method known as nitrogen hypoxia or a similar one. Officials behind each framed the legislation as an alternative method that could help resume executions where they had long been stalled.

Missouri governor turns down clemency request for David Hosier

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ST. LOUIS (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Monday turned down a clemency request for condemned inmate David Hosier, a move that likely clears the way for his execution.

Hosier, 69, faces lethal injection Tuesday for the 2009 deaths of a Jefferson City couple, Angela and Rodney Gilpin. 

Randy Dampf, a Jefferson City police officer at the time of the killings and now an investigator for the county prosecutor, said Hosier had a romantic relationship with Angela Gilpin and was angry with her for breaking it off.

“Ms. Angela Gilpin had her life stolen by David Hosier because he could not accept it when she ended their romantic involvement. He displays no remorse for his senseless violence,” 

Parson, a Republican and a former county sheriff who has overseen 10 executions since taking office in 2018, said in a statement. “For these heinous acts, Hosier earned maximum punishment under the law.”

Larry Komp, a federal public defender and one of Hosier’s attorneys, said no court appeals are pending.

Hosier, in an earlier phone interview with The Associated Press, had expressed displeasure with his lawyers’ clemency petition, which focused on the trauma of his Indiana State Police sergeant father being killed in the line of duty when Hosier was 16. 

Hosier thought it should have focused on the lack of fingerprints, DNA or eyewitnesses tying him to the Gilpins’ deaths. 

Glen Hosier was shot to death by a murder suspect in 1971 after entering a home.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, June 10, 2024

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde



Location: Missouri, USA
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