Bill to remove gas suffocation executions nixed despite change of heart from some lawmakers

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) - A Louisiana House committee stopped a bill that would have reversed the state’s position on using nitrogen hypoxia to execute death row inmates.

The state has only had the gas suffocation method on the books for a few months after a bill passed adding it during the governor’s special crime session in February. The bill also shielded companies that provide the drugs for executions from public records.

Louisiana has 56 inmates on death row and it has been over a decade since the last execution.

A group of Jewish community leaders formed a group called Jews Against Gassing in the weeks after the bill passed to push for a bill to remove the gas option. They say the method is too reminiscent of how millions of Jews and non-Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

“On the experimental form of gassing being added as an execution method in the state of Louisiana. When I first learned about it, it felt like the air had been taken out of my lungs, and I learned that that was the same feeling that the majority of the Jewish community has as well,” said Sara Lewis, a board member of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

Testifiers against the bill repeatedly said they have respect for the Jewish community. The day before, elected officials held a rally against antisemitism on the capitol steps. Yet they said the group was wrong for believing the gas suffocation of inmates is the same as Nazi Germany.

SB430 would have still left lethal injection and the electric chair as options for execution. The bill had bipartisan support in the Senate, with multiple senators voting for it who originally supported adding the method.

The father of a woman who was killed in the 1990’s by a Louisiana death row inmate said he has been searching for justice for decades. With the new method added he is hopeful to get closure in his daughter’s story.

“A few months ago, y’all gave us some hope that something could be done about it. Please don't take that hope away from us,” said Wayne Guzzardo.

Nitrogen hypoxia has only been used in Alabama to put someone to death. Litigation was immediately filed claiming the execution was painful for the inmate and inhumane. 

The bill was voted down with a vote of 8-3. 

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