The nitrogen gas asphyxiation execution of Jessie Hoffman Jr. is back on for next week after a ruling Friday from the U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals.
U.S. District Court Judge Shelly Dick had issued a preliminary injunction earlier this week against the method of execution, pending a trial on the merits of the arguments made by Hoffman's lawyers and the state of Louisiana. Today's ruling overturns that injunction.
Hoffman's appeal argued that suffocating him with nitrogen gas amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, as opposed to forms of execution such as lethal injection or even firing squad.
Louisiana has not been able to procure the drugs necessary for lethal injection, and firing squad is not one of the methods of execution allowed by Louisiana law.
"The district court didn't just get the legal analysis wrong — it turned the Constitution on its head, by relying on an indisputably more painful method of execution as its proposed alternative," the Fifth Circuit ruling states.
State authorities had scheduled Hoffman to die on Tuesday, March 18.
