01 March 2024 :
February 29, 2024 - Louisiana.
Senate passed HB 6 on a 24-15 vote
Louisiana will join Alabama in adding nitrogen suffocation as option for killing prisoners
Louisiana is on the cusp of resuming death penalty executions for the 1st time in more than a decade after the Senate approved a bill Thursday to add electrocution and nitrogen gas suffocation as legal options to kill condemned prisoners.
House Bill 6 by Republican Hammond Rep. Nicholas Muscarello Jr. told USA Today Network he will ask the House to concur with Senate changes and give final passage to the bill later Monday.
Lethal injection is the only legal method of execution now, but state officials have said they've been unable to secure the drugs to carry out the death sentences.
The bill would also shield companies or compound pharmacists from public exposure if they provide the drugs for lethal injection, which would still be the preferred method of execution in Muscarello's legislation. Many companies and pharmacists don't want to be publicly associated with executing prisoners.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who made ending the unofficial moratorium on executions a priority in his legislative Special Session agenda, will sign the bill into law.
Senators approved the bill on a 24-15 vote.
Louisiana last carried out an execution on January 7, 2010, putting Gerald Bordelon to death by lethal injection after he waived his appeals. His execution was the 28th in Louisiana in the modern era of the death penalty.
Louisiana has 57 prisoners on death row.
