Louisiana plans to begin executing people on death row using nitrogen gas, Gov. Jeff Landry said Monday.
The state has approved a new protocol that includes execution by nitrogen hypoxia, he said. The method forces a person to breathe pure nitrogen gas, eventually causing suffocation and organ failure.
The technique is controversial and has only been used a handful of times to execute people in the U.S. A group of experts from the United Nations believe execution by nitrogen hypoxia is “clearly prohibited under international law,” because they argue starving a body of oxygen can amount to cruel and inhuman punishment or even torture.
The governor’s announcement comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month boosting state resources to carry out death sentences. Landry has made it a priority to resume executions in Louisiana, where none have taken place in more than a decade.
“We will carry out these sentences and justice will be dispensed,” said Landry in a press release.
Part of the reason that no executions have taken place in recent years is because it's hard for states to obtain the drugs used for lethal injections.
That difficulty was part of the reason Louisiana lawmakers legalized the use of nitrogen gas and the electric chair as methods for carrying out death sentences last year. At the time, a group of Jewish citizens appealed to lawmakers to reject the use of gassing, saying it evoked the gas chambers used during the Holocaust.
Mississippi and Oklahoma have also legalized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, but Alabama is the only state in the U.S. to have carried out nitrogen gas killings. The state has executed four men since it first used the method in January 2024. The fourth execution, of a man named Demetrius Frazier, took place last week.
Witnesses to the recent nitrogen hypoxia executions in Alabama have described the men writhing, shaking and retaining consciousness for several minutes while inhaling the gas.
Death penalty opponents condemned Louisiana’s new protocol on Monday, including Michael McClanahan, president of the NAACP's Louisiana State Conference.
"Executions do not serve justice," said McClanahan in a statement. "We refuse to stand by while Louisiana resurrects the racist cruelties of the past, echoing the brutal injustices of lynching and slavery."
Some research shows people of color are more likely to be sentenced to death.
Other studies highlight the high financial cost of Louisiana’s capital punishment system, which a 2019 report estimated costs taxpayers over $15 million annually.
