Louisiana executes Jessie Hoffman Jr.

Louisiana used nitrogen gas Tuesday evening to execute a man convicted of murdering a woman in 1996, the 1st time the state has used the method, a lawyer for the condemned man said. 

Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was put to death at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, defense lawyer Cecelia Kappel said in a statement. He was the 1st person executed in the state in 15 years, and his death marked the 5th use of the nitrogen gas method in the US, with all the rest in Alabama. 

Hoffman was convicted of the murder of Mary "Molly" Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive. At the time of the crime, Hoffman was 18.

Hoffman's lawyers had contended that the nitrogen gas execution method violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. But state officials maintain that it is painless. 

"It is unfortunate that bad people exist, and they do real bad things," said Gov. Jeff Landry. "When these acts of violence happen, society must not tolerate it. God is as Just as he is Merciful; and my hope is that when Louisiana empties death row, there will never be another victim whose perpetrator must be placed there. In Louisiana, we will always prioritize victims over criminals, law and order over lawlessness, and justice over the status quo. If you commit heinous acts of violence in this State, it will cost you your life. Plain and simple." 

The U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday rejected a request to block the execution from being carried out. 

Hoffman's lawyers had argued that the nitrogen gas method violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. They also said it infringed on Hoffman's freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to death. 

However, Louisiana officials maintained the method, which deprives a person of oxygen, is painless. They also said it was past time for the state to deliver justice as promised to victims' families after a decade and a half hiatus — one brought on partly by an inability to secure lethal injection drugs. 

Attorney General Liz Murrill said she expects at least four people on Louisiana's death row to be executed this year and said "justice will finally be served" by executing Hoffman. 

After court battles earlier this month, attorneys for Hoffman had turned to the Supreme Court in hopes of halting the execution plan. The court last year declined to intervene in the nation's first nitrogen hypoxia execution. 

This week, his attorneys filed several challenges in state and federal courts seeking to spare him. 

At a hearing Tuesday morning, 19th Judicial District Court Judge Richard "Chip" Moore also declined to stop the execution. He agreed with state lawyers who argued the man's religion-based arguments fell under the jurisdiction of a federal judge who had already ruled on them, according to local news outlets. 

Under Louisiana protocol, which is nearly identical to Alabama's, Hoffman is to be strapped to a gurney and have a full-face respirator mask fitted tightly on him. Pure nitrogen gas is then to be pumped into the mask, forcing him to breathe it in and depriving him of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions. 

The gas is to be administered for at least 15 minutes or 5 minutes after his heart rate reaches a flatline indication on the EKG, whichever is longer. 

Each inmate put to death using nitrogen in Alabama has appeared to shake and gasp to varying degrees during their executions, according to media witnesses, including an Associated Press reporter. The reactions are involuntary movements associated with oxygen deprivation, state officials have said. 

Alabama 1st used the lethal gas to put Kenneth Eugene Smith to death last year, marking the 1st time a new method had been used in the U.S. since lethal injection was introduced in 1982. 

4 states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma — specifically authorize execution by nitrogen hypoxia, according to records compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center. 

Then on Tuesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation allowing executions using nitrogen gas, making hers the 5th state to adopt the method. Arkansas currently has 25 people on death row. 

Seeking to resume executions, Louisiana's GOP-dominated Legislature expanded the state's approved death penalty methods last year to include nitrogen hypoxia and electrocution. Lethal injection was already in place. 

Over recent decades, the number of executions nationally has declined sharply amid legal battles, a shortage of lethal injection drugs and waning public support for capital punishment. That has led a majority of states to either abolish or pause carrying out the death penalty. 

On Tuesday afternoon, a small group of execution opponents held a vigil outside the rural southeast Louisiana prison at Angola, where the state's executions are carried out. Some passed out prayer cards with photos of a smiling Hoffman and planned a Buddhist reading and "Meditation for Peace." 

— Hoffman becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death in Louisiana this year, the the 29th overall since the  state resumed capital punishment on December 14, 1983. 

— Hoffman becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 1,614th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, Rick Halperin, March 18, 2025

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

— Oscar Wilde