After a 15-Year Pause, Louisiana Governor Intends to Restart Executions Using New Nitrogen Gas Protocol; Courts Set Execution Dates for Two Prisoners

On February 10, 2025, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced his deci­sion to end a 15-year pause on exe­cu­tions, say­ing the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections is ready to car­ry out exe­cu­tions under a new nitro­gen gas exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. In a press release fol­low­ing his announce­ment, Gov. Landry said, ​“For too long, Louisiana has failed to uphold the promis­es made to vic­tims of our State’s most vio­lent crimes; but that fail­ure of lead­er­ship by pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tions is over.” He added that ​“the time for bro­ken promis­es has end­ed; we will car­ry out these sen­tences and jus­tice will be dis­pensed.” Attorney General Liz Murrill sup­ports the state’s efforts to resume exe­cu­tions and said that along with Gov. Landry, she is ​“com­mit­ted to mov­ing this process forward[.]” 

The Louisiana Legislature passed a bill in March 2024 that autho­rizes the use of nitro­gen gas and elec­tro­cu­tion as meth­ods of exe­cu­tion. Gov. Landry called for the spe­cial ses­sion in which these bills were passed short­ly after Alabama began to use nitro­gen hypox­ia as a method of exe­cu­tion. Alabama is the only state that has used nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions and has done so four times since January 2024. Mississippi and Oklahoma also autho­rize the use of nitro­gen gas, but do not have pro­to­cols in place. In the same ses­sion, the Louisiana leg­is­la­ture also adopt­ed secre­cy laws to pre­vent the dis­clo­sure of infor­ma­tion about those involved in car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions and the sources of any mate­ri­als. Gov. Landry’s office released a three-para­graph brief sum­ma­ry of the state’s nitro­gen gas pro­to­col, which is miss­ing many details. 

According to the brief sum­ma­ry of the pro­to­col, a mask is to be fixed on the prisoner’s face which will replace the flow of oxy­gen with that of pure nitro­gen. The pris­on­er will be allowed to have a spir­i­tu­al advi­sor and ​“des­ig­nat­ed vic­tim rela­tion­ship wit­ness­es and des­ig­nat­ed media rep­re­sen­ta­tives” will be allowed to view the exe­cu­tion, as state law allows. The brief sum­ma­ry offers lit­tle infor­ma­tion into the spe­cif­ic steps that will take place dur­ing the exe­cu­tion and offers no infor­ma­tion about what will hap­pen in the days pre­ced­ing the exe­cu­tion. As stat­ed in DPI’s 2018 report, Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States, ​“Secrecy increas­es the risk of prob­lems. It results in more botched and poten­tial­ly prob­lem­at­ic exe­cu­tions. Prisoners have a right to infor­ma­tion about the exe­cu­tion process so that they can raise legit­i­mate chal­lenges to exe­cu­tion meth­ods that may sub­ject them to excru­ci­at­ing pain.” With the lim­it­ed infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the brief sum­ma­ry, indi­vid­u­als fac­ing exe­cu­tion dates in Louisiana have lit­tle under­stand­ing about how the state intends to kill them. 

On January 25, 2024, Alabama exe­cut­ed Kenneth Smith by suf­fo­cat­ing him with nitro­gen gas, mark­ing the first time this method was used in U.S. his­to­ry. Attorneys for the state of Alabama assured courts this nov­el method would result in ​“uncon­scious­ness in sec­onds,” how­ev­er, wit­ness­es report­ed that Mr. Smith appeared awake for sev­er­al min­utes after the flow of nitro­gen gas began. Witnesses report­ed that Mr. Smith ​“shook and writhed” for at least four min­utes before con­tin­u­ing to breathe heav­i­ly for anoth­er few min­utes. Media wit­ness Lee Hedgepeth said, ​“This was the fifth exe­cu­tion that I’ve wit­nessed in Alabama, and I have nev­er seen such a vio­lent reac­tion to an exe­cu­tion.” Per report­ing from the Associated Press, all four of the men exe­cut­ed with nitro­gen gas ​“shook or gasped to vary­ing degrees on the gur­ney” as they were dying. 

Within one day of Gov. Landry’s announce­ment, mul­ti­ple dis­trict attor­neys in Louisiana began request­ing exe­cu­tion dates for pris­on­ers. Rapides Parish District Attorney Phillip Terrell sought and obtained an exe­cu­tion war­rant for Larry Roy for March 19, 2025. However, District Judge Lowell Hazel recalled the exe­cu­tion war­rant, declar­ing it ​“null and void” after attor­neys for Mr. Roy argued that he has not exhaust­ed all of his legal avenues for relief. Court records indi­cate that no hear­ing was ever sched­uled for Mr. Roy’s 2004 post-con­vic­tion motion. A judge in 2004 ordered the state to file a response motion relat­ed to con­cerns about the state’s pos­si­ble fail­ure to dis­close records. Since then, Mr. Roy’s post-con­vic­tion appeal has remained untouched. According to argu­ments from DA Terrell, Mr. Roy has aban­doned his post-con­vic­tion appeal and is thus eli­gi­ble for exe­cu­tion. Cecelia Kappel, direc­tor of the Loyola University Center for Social Justice, which rep­re­sents Mr. Roy, said that DA Terrell’s attempt to secure an exe­cu­tion war­rant was ​“patent­ly unlaw­ful” and ​“emblem­at­ic of how reck­less the state’s plan to restart exe­cu­tions is.” DA Terrell indi­cat­ed that he would try again to have the court set an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Roy. 

On February 11^th, DeSoto Parish District Attorney Charles Adams request­ed an exe­cu­tion date for 81-year-old Christopher Sepulvado for March 17, 2025. Mr. Sepulvado was con­vict­ed in the 1993 mur­der of his 6‑year-old step­son son. The court approved the dis­trict attorney’s request and set the March 17^th exe­cu­tion date, despite seri­ous con­cerns over Mr. Sepulvado’s cur­rent ​“myr­i­ad health issues.” According to his attor­ney, Shawn Nolan, Mr. Sepulvado is ​“a debil­i­tat­ed old man suf­fer­ing from seri­ous med­ical ail­ments.” Mr. Sepulvado is cur­rent­ly wheel-chair bound, has fre­quent falls, ​“and his heart and lungs are strug­gling to keep work­ing.” Mr. Nolan asserts ​“there is no con­ceiv­able rea­son why ​‘jus­tice’ might be served by exe­cut­ing Chris instead of let­ting him live out his few remain­ing days in prison.” 

St. Tammany Parish District Attorney Collin Sims also request­ed a court sign an exe­cu­tion war­rant for March 18, 2025, for Jessie Hoffman, who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1998. Counsel for Mr. Hoffman issued a state­ment fol­low­ing the announce­ment of his exe­cu­tion date, say­ing despite the abuse and neglect he expe­ri­enced as a child, ​“Jessie has worked to over­come the trau­ma. He is a father with a close, lov­ing rela­tion­ship with his son, who he helped raise from prison. He has become a val­ued and sta­bi­liz­ing pres­ence at the prison.” DA Sims told mem­bers of the press that his office request­ed an exe­cu­tion war­rant after learn­ing the state intend­ed to resume exe­cu­tions, adding, ​“the only rea­son why [his sen­tence] hasn’t been car­ried out is because there was not a means to exe­cute the sentence.” 

In 2012, Mr. Hoffman sued Louisiana, accus­ing the state of refus­ing to dis­close how it intend­ed to exe­cute him. At that time, Louisiana was unable to obtain sodi­um thiopen­tal, one of the three autho­rized drugs in their 2010 lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. Over the next six years, the state imple­ment­ed sev­er­al alter­na­tive pro­to­cols that Mr. Hoffman and oth­er pris­on­ers also chal­lenged. In July 2018, then Attorney General Jeff Landry pulled his staff from the case and blamed then Governor John Bel Edwards for the long delay in resum­ing exe­cu­tions. In 2021, then AG Landry’s office asked U.S. District Court Judge Shelly Dick to dis­miss the law­suit because it was moot — the state could not secure the drugs need­ed for lethal injec­tion. In March 2022, Judge Dick agreed to dis­miss the law­suit but reserved the right for the plain­tiffs to refile in the future. In response to the Louisiana legislature’s expan­sion of avail­able exe­cu­tion meth­ods in 2024, attor­neys for Mr. Hoffman and oth­ers who joined his suit filed a motion for relief from judg­ment in an effort to reopen the case. Following Gov. Landry’s announce­ment on February 10^th about the new nitro­gen gas pro­to­col, coun­sel filed a motion to sub­mit an emer­gency brief, cit­ing the state’s set­ting of exe­cu­tion dates for both Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Roy, who is also par­ty to the law­suit. AG Murrill told the press that she is aware of the most recent motion, but that it is not a ​“prop­er vehi­cle” to chal­lenge their executions. 

In response to AG Murrill’s com­ments, Ms. Kappel, who is rep­re­sent­ing Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Roy in the law­suit, said, ​“Louisiana’s death penal­ty sys­tem makes promis­es that it can’t keep, with over 84% of death sen­tences reversed for rea­sons such as pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, indi­vid­u­als that have seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, trau­ma [or] brain dam­age and even inno­cence.” According to the Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI), 39 of the 57 indi­vid­u­als on Louisiana’s death row have been diag­nosed with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness and/​or brain dam­age, and a sim­i­lar num­ber have expe­ri­enced severe child­hood trau­ma includ­ing phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and sex­u­al abuse. Nine peo­ple have been freed from death row in Louisiana since 1999, and PJI’s data indi­cate that 40% of those on the state’s death row have a doc­u­ment­ed intellectual disability. 

As more states con­sid­er using nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method, three of the largest man­u­fac­tur­ers in the U.S. have barred their prod­ucts intend­ed for life-sav­ing mea­sures from use in exe­cu­tions. 

Louisiana’s last exe­cu­tion took place in 2010, with the lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion of Gerald Bordelon, who waived his appeals and vol­un­teered for execution.