Louisiana will resume executions after a 15-year hiatus, forging ahead on plans set in motion last spring to carry out death sentences using nitrogen hypoxia.
The office of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry released a summary of the state’s updated execution protocol on Monday alongside a pledge to move forward with the death penalty for the first time since 2010. There are currently 63 people on death row in Louisiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, but legal challenges, political opposition and problems obtaining lethal injection drugs have kept the state from actually executing people for more than a decade.
“The time for broken promises has ended; we will carry out these sentences and justice will be dispensed,” Landry said in a statement. “I expect our DA’s to finalize these cases and the courts to move swiftly to bring justice to the crime victims who have waited for too long.”Â
There are technically three execution methods approved in Louisiana. Lethal injection is the default method, and electrocution and nitrogen hypoxia are alternatives. State legislators last year authorized nitrogen hypoxia, an experimental procedure tried just four times before in the nation’s recorded history, as a means to execute death row prisoners. Their decision came shortly after Alabama introduced the method to the public in January 2024, during the controversial and disputed execution of Kenny Smith, whose death was described by several witnesses, including reporters, as potentially torturous.
Little is understood about nitrogen hypoxia, where an inmate is made to suffocate on nitrogen gas delivered through a face mask, and Alabama was the only U.S. state prior to this week that had released a protocol for this type of execution. In addition to Alabama and, now, Louisiana, nitrogen gas executions have also been approved by legislatures in Mississippi and Oklahoma, while Ohio and Nebraska positioned themselves to follow suit after Smith was put to death.
The summary of Louisiana’s nitrogen gas protocol is void of details but it appears, superficially, similar to what is known about Alabama’s approach.
“Execution by nitrogen hypoxia is accomplished by placing a mask on the inmate’s face and replacing oxygen with nitrogen gas,” it reads in part. “At the designated time, pure nitrogen gas will be administered to the inmate through the mask for a sufficient time period necessary to cause the death of the inmate. In accordance with the protocol, the coroner will then be asked to confirm the death.”
