A convicted murderer was put to death in a Louisiana prison using nitrogen gas, the first time the state has used the method as it resumed executions for the first time in 15 years.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was pronounced dead at 6:50pm on Tuesday at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in an execution that lasted 19 minutes.
One official present said the execution was ‘flawless.’
It was the fifth time nitrogen gas was pumped through a gas mask to essentially suffocate a death row inmate.
The previous four were conducted in Alabama, with the first nitrogen execution in United States history being performed in January 2024 on Kenneth Eugene Smith, a man who killed a 45-year-old woman more than 30 years ago.
Smith, much like Hoffman, was alive for 22 minutes while nitrogen gas flowed into his lungs.
Hoffman was convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of Mary ‘Molly’ Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive who was killed in New Orleans.
At the time of the crime in 1996, Hoffman was 18 and has since spent much of his adult life at the penitentiary in rural southeast Louisiana, where he was executed Tuesday evening.
Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, was pronounced dead at 6:50pm on Tuesday at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in an execution that lasted 19 minutes
Hoffman was convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of Mary ‘Molly’ Elliott (pictured), a 28-year-old advertising executive who was killed in New Orleans
Pictured: The execution table Hoffman was strapped to at the Louisiana State Penitentiary
Hoffman’s lawyers waged numerous court battles on his behalf, hoping to spare his life.
His attorneys claimed the nitrogen hypoxia method is unconstitutional and violates his Eighth Amendment right that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
They also said it infringes on Hoffman’s freedom to practice religion, specifically his Buddhist breathing and meditation in the moments leading up to his death.
‘Mr. Hoffman sincerely believes that he must practice his Buddhist breathing exercises at the critical transition between life and death,’ his lawyers said.
Despite appeals to all the way up to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land voted 5-4 against intervening in Hoffman’s case.
Hoffman’s Buddhist spiritual adviser knelt beside him while chanting as he slowly suffocated, NOLA.com reported.
Witnesses said they entered the chamber at 6:17pm and that gas began to flow into Hoffman’s mask at 6:21pm.
Hoffman was strapped down to the table and most of his body was covered with a thick blanket, though people present reported seeing him making a sacred hand gesture in Buddhism – a index finger and thumb pointing toward one another.
Shortly after the gas was turned on, Hoffman began twitching, witnesses said. They added that his hands were clenched and his head jerked as the gas flowed.
He took his last visible breath at 6:37pm and the curtains were closed to the chamber shortly after.
The prison warden pronounced him dead at 6:50pm when the curtains reopened.
