A man on death row in the US is due to be executed later today under particularly controversial circumstances that have been slammed as ‘inhumane’ by experts.
Jessie Hoffman, 46, was sentenced to death for the 1996 rape and murder of 28-year-old Mary Elliott, having kidnapped the advertising executive at gunpoint in downtown New Orleans.
The convicted murderer is scheduled to die by nitrogen gas at Louisiana state penitentiary later today (18 March), commonly known as Angola prison – an execution that would become the state’s first in 15 years.
If it goes ahead, Louisiana would also become the second state to use nitrogen gas as a means of execution – a method that is famously banned for euthanizing cats and dogs under the state's own laws.
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Lawyers for Hoffman have argued that prisoners displayed signs of severe distress during similar deaths in Alabama in recent months, with contract killer Kenneth Smith said to have shaken violently, writhed and convulsed.
Alan Miller, who died in September last year via nitrogen hypoxia, also shook and trembled on the gurney for approximately two minutes.
Hoffman’s attorney, Cecelia Kappel, said the ‘new execution method is likely to cause Jessie to suffer psychological terror and a torturous death’, as he is forced to breathe pure nitrogen gas through a full-face respirator mask while strapped down.
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The method is banned against using on animals in Louisiana after experts argued that it was an inhumane way to die.
Louisiana veterinarian Lee Capone, who was part of the campaign behind the ban, told the Guardian how he became convinced that it was an inhumane technique after he saw dogs being killed with gas.
“A large number of dogs were put into a concrete bunker and gassed,” he recalled.
“It was clear from their bodies, which had eyes wide open and dilated, saliva round the mouth, signs of vomiting and diarrhea, that they had been frightened and scared, and had suffered.”
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Capone said he found the idea of Hoffman being killed in the same way ‘horrific’, arguing: “We are going backwards, it’s not humane.”
Last month, another veterinarian named Dr Mike Greenberg told KTAL how the process causes an 'undue amount of fear, stress, and anxiety' among animals.
"The reason for this is the mechanism through which it works," he added.
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"With gas asphyxiation, a state of hypoxia is induced, and that just means that a lack of oxygen or inadequate amount of oxygen is being delivered to the brain, the heart, the lungs, tissues of the body and that leads to death.”
According to Greenberg, those who administered the gas described graphic scenes including seizures, bleeding from the nose and other issues as the animal died.
Jess Hardiman