On Tuesday, a Louisiana Death Row inmate on Tuesday was executed with nitrogen gas, a method that had never been used in the state before.
“Louisiana has successfully used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out the execution of Jessie Hoffman,” shared the attorney general of Louisiana, Liz Murrill, with Fox News Digital in a statement.
Hoffman, 46, was sentenced in 1996 for the kidnapping, violation and murder of 28 -year -old advertising executive, Mary “Molly” Elliott.
Elliott was kidnapped by Hoffman, who was 18 years old at that time, from home the day before thanksgiving and the style of execution in the rural parish of St. Tammany.
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Hoffman, 46, was sentenced in the kidnapping of 1996, the rape and murder of Mary Elliott, an advertising executive of 28 years. (Caroline Tillman/Federal Public Defenders Office for the Middle and Western Districts of Louisiana through AP)
“Hoffman was convicted and convicted of death by the brutal and ruthless rape and murder of 28 years [Mary] Molly Elliott in 1996. Tonight, justice was served for Molly and the state of Louisiana, “Murrill continued.
“Governor Jeff Landry and I made a promise to the citizens of Louisiana and the relatives of the victims of these atrocious crimes that would follow the law and put them first.”
Hoffman refused to give a final statement before the gas began to flow, and was subsequently declared dead at 6:50 pm in the penitentiary of the state of Louisiana, said Associated Press.
The authorities said that nitrogen gas flowed for 19 minutes during what an official called an “impeccable” execution, although a witness claimed to see Hoffman seized during the process.
Shortly before Hoffman was scheduled to be executed, the United States Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny a last abandonment request to block the execution.
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A photo provided by The Promise of Justice Initiative shows the stretcher in the new execution chamber in the penitentiary of the state of Louisiana. (The Promise of Justice initiative through AP)
Hoffman's lawyer, Cecelia Kappel, previously argued and without success in a state appeal that executed the convict murderer through nitrogen gas was unconstitutional and would violate his religious freedom.
“It's conscious suffocation,” Kappel told Wvue. “It's having a pillow on your face. It's like drowning.”
The appeal stated that, since Hoffman is Buddhist, the execution process would interrupt his breathing and meditation practices.
“He has proposed: 'Get me up with a shooting squad,” Kappel said. “'At least then, I can breathe air at the time of my death.' And the state has said no.”
Darrel Vannoy, Centro, the Guardian of the Penitentiary of the State of Louisiana, enters a room to announce that the execution of Jessie Hoffman Jr. advances Tuesday in Angola, La. Hoffman was convicted of Mary “Molly” of 1996. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate through AP)
Louisiana officials say that the method, which deprives an oxygen person, is painless, stating that it is time for the State to deliver promised justice to the families of the victims after a pause of a decade and a half, a pause caused partly by an inability to ensure lethal injection drugs, Associated Press reported.
Hoffman was awarded a temporary respite by a federal judge, but the fifth circuit courts revoked him on Friday and the additional attempts to stop the state execution were also rejected on Tuesday morning.
Murrill said the Court's decision will help bring justice to Elliott.
“Breaking: The Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit annul the court order in the case of Hoffman. The convicted murderer and the rapist will be taken before justice on Tuesday,” Murrill wrote in a publication about X.
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“This is justice for Mary” Molly “Elliott, his friends, his family and for Louisiana.”
Murrill added that he hopes at least four people will be executed in the Louisiana death corridor this year.
“The last execution here in Louisiana was in 2010 by Gerald Bordelon, a convicted and sexual criminal murderer. Justice has been delayed for too long. I, together with the Louisiana Department of Justice, remains committed to ensuring that justice is carried out in all cases of death penalty in Louisiana,” Murrill voted.
“I made an oath to continue and defend the law. Now Jessie Hoffman faces a final judgment before God in the hereafter. My prayers remain with the family and friends of Molly Elliott, and that no family member has to go through the pain they still feel to this day for the loss of someone like Molly.”
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A state flag of Louisiana flies at the entrance of the penitentiary of the state of Louisiana in Angola, Louisiana, where the murderer Jessie Hoffman Jr. was executed. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate through AP)
Hoffman will become the seventh person executed in the United States in 2025, and the first in Louisiana since 2010. He was the fifth person in the United States to be executed by nitrogen gas, and the previous four occurred in Alabama.
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Nitrogen gas death is currently allowed in only four states, including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma. However, the method has only been used in Alabama.
During the last decades, the number of executions nationwide has decreased sharply amid legal battles, according to the AP, which has led most states to abolish or stop the realization of the death penalty.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price is a writer of Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers issues that include missing persons, homicides, national cases of crimes, illegal immigration and more. The advice and ideas of history can be sent to [email protected]
