Louisiana is poised to become the fourth state in the nation to allow executions using nitrogen gas after a bill on Thursday cleared a key legislative hurdle. It is now headed for the desk of Gov. Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it.
The bill was introduced during a special legislative session focusing on criminal justice issues that opened last week and comes on the heels of the first nitrogen gas execution in the U.S., which was conducted by Alabama corrections officials in January.
Two other states have authorized the method — Mississippi and Oklahoma, both in 2015 — but neither has developed a protocol like Alabama. Another state, Nebraska, is considering nitrogen hypoxia, and held a legislative hearing Wednesday that drew significant opposition.
Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, a Republican who drafted Louisiana’s bill, said even after his state formulates a nitrogen protocol, he expects lethal injection to remain the primary method for executions.
Death by lethal injection has become increasingly harder to carry out for many states, as drug manufacturers and suppliers have declined participation amid a series of botched executions in states like Alabama and Oklahoma. Idaho on Wednesday attempted its first execution via lethal injection in over a decade but had to stop the procedure when officials struggled to find a suitable vein.
About 60 people are on death row in Louisiana, but the state has not put anyone to death since 2010, last using lethal injection. The method has stalled due to the shortage of the necessary drugs and litigation challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol.
Now, the potential for using nitrogen hypoxia, in which a person breathes only nitrogen gas and is deprived of oxygen, gives Louisiana a new path forward, Muscarello said.
“We told the victims’ families that their perpetrator will be executed,” Muscarello said, “and we have a duty to uphold that.”
Muscarello’s bill easily passed the House and Senate, which are both controlled by…
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