Louisiana advances bill to add electric chair, nitrogen hypoxia to executions

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The state legislature is advancing a bill that would expand methods of execution. HB6 is part of campaign promises from Governor Jeff Landry to resume executions. It adds the electric chair and nitrogen hypoxia as methods of execution.

Louisiana has only put one person to death in the last two decades. There have been lawsuits and a hesitation to provide the drugs for lethal injections. Governor Landry promised to bring executions back, claiming it brings justice to the families of victims.

“We made an oath to uphold the laws of our state. Today, you can honor that oath and remove the hurdle so that justice can be served,” said State Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond.

Alabama became the first state to put someone to death by nitrogen hypoxia. It is a gas that is given to an inmate and essentially suffocates them. Advocates argued that the method is inhumane and painful. There is currently a lawsuit filed in Alabama to prevent nitrogen hypoxia to be prevented as a form of execution again.

At the hearing at the capitol, Howard Vincent shared how his brother was an officer killed at a traffic stop. He said the state needs to uphold the sentence.

“You have to take into account there are extremely evil, deviant people,” Vincent said.

Vincent was joined by a number of other family members of victims who were killed by people on Louisiana’s death row. They asked for closure in their cases by seeing the inmates executed.

“Victims should not be sitting here listening to a bunch of bureaucracy and having to go back to court. We had to go to sentencing twice,” Vincent said.

Louisiana has exonerated 11 people from its death row in recent history. Advocates against the bill say there is too high of a risk of innocent people being put to death and it is costly to the state to continue with appeals. 

“You have seen time and time again that our death penalty system is broken. Imposing new execution methods of electrocution, of smothering, of using secret poison is not the way to fix our death penalty,” said Ceceilia Kappel, Executive Director of the Capital Appeals Project.

Advocates also said the death penalty does not deter crime.

“There is no data, no report that will show that state execution is going to make us safer. It is pure vengeance, and the state shouldn't be in the business of vengeance,” said Sue Weishar with the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola.

The bill also adds a level of secrecy to executions. It makes it illegal to share where the drugs come from and who may have provided them. This would clear up some of the current hold ups around carrying out the death penalty.

The bill was passed out of committee without objection, now it heads to the full House for its next round of votes. The special crime-focused session can last until March 6.

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