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nitrogen gas
The Final Hours of Jessie Hoffman, Murdered by the State of Louisiana
The killing of this man, said one of his lawyers, "has been in service of no one, but the bloodlust of our state government.”
Mar 20, 2025
Three hours before he was to be murdered by the State of Louisiana, Jessie Hoffman greeted me with a strong handshake and an embrace. He stared deep into my eyes and thanked me for coming. We discussed his son, also named Jessie, and how proud he has made his dad.
Also visiting were three of the many lawyers who had been fighting for his life, Cecelia Trenticosta Kappel of the Loyola Center for Social Justice, Samantha Bosalavage Pourciau of the Promise of Justice Initiative, and Sarah Ottinger, who had been representing Jessie Hoffman for 19 years. I was there to witness the murder of Mr. Hoffman if Louisiana reversed its course and allowed one of the legal team to remain through the whole process.
Already in the room when we arrived was Rev. Reimoku Gregory Smith, a Buddhist priest Hoffman chose to accompany him. Jessie is a practicing Buddhist and has been a leader among those in prison for decades. Reverend Reimoku was in long black robes. He was serene and almost glowing in kindness.
We sat around a big wooden conference table that had the logo of the State of Louisiana carved into the middle of it. Uniformed officers from the Louisiana State Penitentiary sat in opposite ends of the room. There were two big pictures on the walls—one of Elijah on a flaming chariot and one of Daniel in the lion’s den.
The room in which Louisiana planned to murder Jessie Hoffman was steps away.
The victim’s sister-in-law specifically asked Louisiana not to murder Jessie Hoffman, saying “Executing Jessie Hoffman is not justice in my name, it is the opposite.”
Jessie Hoffman is about six feet tall and muscular. He was wearing a black t-shirt that said Life Row in white letters on it—the name that its 50+ occupants prefer to call what the outside world calls death row. He has been fasting for days and mostly sits quietly with his arms on the wooden table, staring intently at whoever was talking to him.
Jessie was holding his favorite book, "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy and Liberation" by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist Zen Master, author, poet, and peacemaker who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Jessie asked Reverend Reimoku to read his favorite passage from the book to us. It was called the Four Immeasurable Minds: Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity. He read and reflected as we took in these words together. Jessie occasionally closed his eyes.
Louisiana was scheduled to murder Jessie Hoffman by first immobilizing him by tying down his arms, hands, legs, and torso on a crucifix-like platform. Then, once he was helpless to resist, they would cover his face with an industrial-grade respirator and pump his lungs full of poison high-grade nitrogen gas. Nitrogen gas causes death by depriving the body of oxygen, essentially causing suffocation in a phenomenon known as hypoxia. This method is so horrible all but two states have stopped using nitrogen gas on animals declaring it inhumane. The United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights has condemned the use of nitrogen gas in executions saying its use could amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment in violation of international human rights law.
Jessie Hoffman was to be murdered by Louisiana because he had as a teenager, after years of shocking physical, sexual and psychological abuse, committed a horrible murder in 1996.
Now the Louisiana Governor claimed it was necessary for the state to respond to this murder by itself murdering Jessie Hoffman to “prioritize victims over criminals.”
Yet the actual family members of the victim of Jessie’s murder were not asking Louisiana to murder him.
The victim’s sister-in-law specifically asked Louisiana not to murder Jessie Hoffman, saying “Executing Jessie Hoffman is not justice in my name, it is the opposite.”
The victim’s husband refused to attend the state execution and said he is now “indifferent to the death penalty vs life in prison without parole.” He also another reason for not attending was he was “just not really feeling like I need to watch another human being die."
Years before, Jessie Hoffman wrote a statement apologizing to the victims. Louisiana refused to deliver it to the family.
Jessie and the victim’s sister-in-law tried to talk by zoom so Jessie could apologize to her directly but Louisiana would not allow it.
As our visit continued, another long-time lawyer arrived. Caroline Tillman, who has been working to save Jessie Hoffman from state murder for 22 years, came directly from federal court in New Orleans. Teams of lawyers tried to stop the state murder of Jessie Hoffman, filing in several state and federal courts. Only the U.S. Supreme Court had not been heard from yet.
More prayers were said. The letter from the sister-in-law asking that the state murder not go forward was read aloud. More prayers. More than 250 faith leaders had recently signed letters asking Louisiana not to revive the practice of state murder with nitrogen gas.
With less than an hour to go before the scheduled murder of Jessie Hoffman, the Warden came in and politely but firmly terminated the lawyers’ visit. He refused permission to allow any lawyer to stay and witness the murder of Jessie Hoffman. Only Reverend Reimoku was allowed to remain.
After the lawyers were escorted out, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop the murder of Mr. Hoffman by a vote of 5-4, one vote short of the 5 votes needed for a stay.
The murder of Jessie Hoffman by Louisiana could now begin.
John Simmerman, a journalist with Nola.com, was one of two media witnesses allowed to view the execution of Jessie Hoffman. He reports that at 6:21 pm the ultra-high-grade nitrogen was pumped into the immobilized Mr. Hoffman. His breathing became uneven. His chest rose. He made a jerking motion. His body shook. His fingers twitched. He pulled at the table. His hands clenched. His breathing slowed. His head moved inside the mask. He jerked slightly around 6:27 pm and stopped moving. Louisiana officials reported the poison gas was pumped into Jessie Hoffman for 19 minutes until he was pronounced dead. The last view of Jessie Hoffman with his face now uncovered showed “his head was tilted back, teeth exposed in a grimace.”
The murder of Jessie Hoffman by Louisiana was now complete.
Samantha Pourciau, who was with Jessie Hoffman on his final day on earth, said: “Tonight, while many in our state cannot afford groceries, the state used countless resources to kill one man. The governor cannot cloak this in fighting for victims, because today we learned that this is not, in fact, what this family wants. This is what the governor wants. This has been in service of no one, but the bloodlust of our state government.”Keep ReadingShow Less
Top US Nitrogen Gas Producers Ban Use in Executions
"Drug manufacturers don't want their medicines diverted and misused in torturous executions and the makers of nitrogen gas share the same objection: They do not want their products to be used to kill," said one campaigner.
Mar 11, 2024
Three of the leading U.S. manufacturers of medical-grade nitrogen gas said this week that they will not allow their products to be used in executions, a move that came after Louisiana approved the controversial capital punishment method recently used to kill an Alabama prisoner who appeared to be in agony before he died.
Airgas—owned by the French company Air Liquide—along with Air Products, and Matheson Gas toldThe Guardian that they are banning the use of their nitrogen gas products in the previously untested execution method used to cause death by hypoxia, or deprivation of oxygen to vital tissues.
Veterinarians consider nitrogen gas unethical for euthanizing animals and United Nations human rights experts have asserted that the execution technique may violate international anti-torture law.
"Airgas has not, and will not, supply nitrogen or other inert gases to induce hypoxia for the purpose of human execution," the company said.
Matheson Gas told The Guardian that use of its products in executions is "not consistent with our company values," while Air Products told the U.K.-based newspaper that it has established "prohibited end uses for our products, which includes the use of any of our industrial gas products for the intentional killing of any person (including nitrogen hypoxia)."
Four states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma—have approved nitrogen gas for use in executions. Last week, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed legislation passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature expanding execution methods to include the electric chair and nitrogen hypoxia. This, despite the agonizing execution in January of 58-year-old Kenneth Smith, who was killed by the state of Alabama by nitrogen hypoxia on January 25 after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last-ditch appeal.
Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser to U.S. death row inmates, witnessed Smith's killing, which he described as "horrific and cruel." Hood and other witnesses said Smith convulsed violently for several minutes while he was strapped to a gurney and forced to breathe nitrogen gas through a mask. Even prison guards were taken by surprise as the gurney shook and Smith struggled for his life.
Alabama officials had claimed that nitrogen hypoxia is "perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised."
States have sought alternative means of killing condemned prisoners—including nitrogen gas and firing squads—ever since the European Union banned the sale and export of lethal injection drugs in 2011.
Maya Foa, co-executive director of the anti-death penalty group Reprieve, told The Guardian that "drug manufacturers don't want their medicines diverted and misused in torturous executions and the makers of nitrogen gas share the same objection: They do not want their products to be used to kill."
"States which claim that the lethal injection or gas inhalation are 'humane' methods of execution are merely seeking to mask what it means for a state to forcibly put someone to death," Foa added. "The makers of these products see through the lie and naturally want nothing to do with it."
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UN Rights Experts Says Alabama Nitrogen Execution May Constitute Torture
"Rather than inventing new ways to implement capital punishment, we urge all states to put in place a moratorium on its use, as a step towards universal abolition," said the U.N. Human Rights Office.
Jan 16, 2024
As the United States insists on continuing state-sanctioned killings despite a European ban on drugs commonly used in capital punishment, the United Nations Human Rights Office warned Tuesday that Alabama officials may soon violate international laws banning torture as they plan to use nitrogen gas in an upcoming execution.
A number of U.N. officials have said in recent days that the planned execution of Kenneth Smith, who was convicted for a 1988 murder, should be halted as it likely will violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Smith is scheduled to face the death penalty at Alabama's Holman Correctional Facility on January 25, with authorities binding a mask to his face to forcibly administer nitrogen gas, which would deprive him of oxygen.
On Tuesday, Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said that by allowing the execution, the U.S. may also breach two international human rights treaties—the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
"The death penalty is inconsistent with the fundamental right to life. There is an absence of proof that it deters crime, and it creates an unacceptable risk of executing innocent people," said Shamdasani. "Rather than inventing new ways to implement capital punishment, we urge all states to put in place a moratorium on its use, as a step towards universal abolition."
Pro-death penalty officials in the U.S. have in recent years sought to carry out executions using obsolete or untested methods, as the European Union has banned pharmaceutical companies from selling medications that can be used in capital punishment.
"What does it say about the morally-enervated condition of our political culture that the state of Alabama is so eager to try for a second time to kill someone... that it's willing to put the lives of a pastor and its prison execution team at risk?"
Experts say Smith would be the first person in the world to be killed via capital punishment using "asphyxiation with an inert gas."
A federal judge ruled last week that Alabama could proceed with Smith's execution using nitrogen. Smith had sued the Alabama Department of Corrections, arguing that the execution, if botched, could leave him in a permanent vegetative state or cause a stroke, and that the method carries the risk of "particular pain and suffering."
A previous attempt to execute Smith was botched by Alabama prison officials in 2022, when, as journalist Robyn Pennachia wrote at Wonkette, officials "spent hours and hours trying and failing to properly insert an IV while Smith was strapped to a gurney."
Shamdasani noted that Alabama's plan to execute Smith does not even meet the standards put forth by the American Veterinary Medical Association, which recommends sedating animals that are euthanized using nitrogen gas.
"Nitrogen gas has never been used in the United States to execute human beings," said Shamdasani. "Alabama's protocol for execution by nitrogen asphyxiation makes no provision for sedation of human beings prior to execution."
Mississippi and Oklahoma have also approved the use of nitrogen gas for executions in the absence of barbiturates for lethal injections, while Utah, South Carolina, and Idaho are among the states that have approved firing squads as a capital punishment method.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee, said Shamdasani, "has also criticized the use of asphyxiation by gas as an execution method, the use of untested methods, as well as widening the use of the death penalty in states that continue to apply it."
Amnesty International has pointed out that the jury that convicted Smith in 1996 supported life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, but a judge imposed a death sentence "under a judicial override system outlawed in Alabama in 2017."
As Jeffrey St. Clair wrote at Counterpunch last week, Alabama officials seem "uncertain about how the execution might unfold," and are requiring Smith's spiritual adviser, who is permitted to be in the execution chamber, to sign a waiver requiring him to stay three feet away from Smith due to the risk that "a hose supplying nitrogen to Smith's mask detaches from his face, filling an area around him with the potentially deadly odorless, tasteless, invisible gas."
"What does it say about the morally-enervated condition of our political culture that the state of Alabama is so eager to try for a second time to kill someone (whose own jury didn't think should be put to death in the first place) that it's willing to put the lives of a pastor and its prison execution team at risk?" wrote St. Clair. "Other states are eagerly awaiting the death notice from Holman Prison so that they can accelerate their stalled rosters of slated killings by using this ghastly new method. The execution of Kenneth Smith will signal yet another triumph of American efficiency culture, where death always seems to find a way."
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