Nitrogen hypoxia execution doesn’t seem headed for widespread adoption as bills fall short and nitrogen producers object

CNN — The day after Alabama carried out the first-known US execution using nitrogen gas, its attorney general sent a clear message to death penalty states that might want to follow suit: “Alabama has done it, and now so can you.” Indeed, in the weeks immediately following the January execution of Kenneth Smith, it appeared a handful of states were listening, introducing bills that would adopt the method known as nitrogen hypoxia or a similar one. “We’re not seeing a lot of states jumping on board,” said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project at Phillips Black, a nonprofit law firm that specializes in post-conviction legal representation, describing the bills so far as “a reflexive reaction by some legislators in some states who are desperate to find alternatives to lethal injection.” “I think that in states in which there is not a reflexive reaction and legislators actually take time to consider what it means to suffocate a prisoner to death with nitrogen gas or other gas, you are unlikely to see gas adopted as an alternative.” Meantime, several manufacturers of nitrogen gas have said they oppose their products being used for executions, echoing the kind of bans many pharmaceutical companies have instituted for their drugs in lethal injections – thus prompting states to seek an alternative. But beyond the initial reflexive introduction of bills in a small number of states, I don’t think there’s going to be a larger first wave of attempts to expand execution methods across the country.” One bill passes … While some US states decades ago used lethal gas to execute prisoners, the use of nitrogen hypoxia is new. Republican state Reps. Phil Plummer and Brian Stewart proposed HB 392 with the support of the state’s GOP attorney general, who said nitrogen hypoxia could bring “closure” to victims after years of the state struggling to obtain the drugs necessary for lethal injections, leading to an effective moratorium on Ohio’s death penalty.