The Japan Times - US to execute four Death Row inmates this week

Jessie Hoffman, who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Molly Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive, will be the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years.

A district court judge last week stayed Hoffman's execution on the grounds that the use of nitrogen gas may amount to cruel and unusual punishment, which is banned under the US Constitution.

But the stay was lifted by the conservative-dominated US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing the execution to proceed.

Only one other US state, Alabama, has carried out executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.

The method has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.

- 'Plenty of execution methods' -

The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection, although South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on March 7.

Hoffman, a parking lot attendant, was convicted in 1998 of abducting Elliott in New Orleans as she went to retrieve her car and join her husband for dinner.

Hoffman forced Elliott to withdraw $200 from an ATM machine, before raping and killing her with a single shot to the head.

He was 18 years old at the time.

Elliott's nude body was found by a duck hunter the next day on a makeshift dock by the Middle Pearl River.

Hoffman's lawyers have appealed to the Supreme Court to halt the execution on the grounds that the nitrogen gas would "interfere with Jessie's ability to practice his Buddhist meditative breathing."

"The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that prisoners must be allowed to practice their religion as their lives are being taken by execution," said Cecelia Kappel, one of Hoffman's attorneys.

"There are plenty of execution methods Louisiana could adopt that would not interfere with Jessie's ability to practice his Buddhist meditative breathing, and only one, nitrogen gas, that makes it impossible for him to do so," Kappel said.

- Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma executions -

Three other executions are scheduled in the United States this week -- in Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma.

Aaron Gunches, 53, is to be executed by lethal injection in Arizona on Wednesday for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend's ex-husband.

Gunches has dropped legal efforts to halt his execution, which would be the first in the southwestern state since November 2022.

Wendell Grissom, 56, is to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday for shooting and killing Amber Matthews, 23, in 2005 during a home robbery.

Edward James, 63, is to be executed by lethal injection in Florida on Thursday.

James was sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, Toni Neuner, and the murder of Betty Dick, her 58-year-old grandmother.

There have been six executions in the United States this year, following 25 last year.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place.

President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use "for the vilest crimes."

T.Kobayashi--JT