States where the death penalty has come to a standstill, look at Alabama

Days after Alabama became the first state to put an inmate to death using nitrogen gas, officials elsewhere have begun considering the new execution method.

In Ohio, where no one has been put to death in five years, the state's attorney general and several Republican lawmakers are in attendance a new bill touted on Tuesday, that would allow execution by nitrogen hypoxia, in addition to lethal injection.

Oklahoma and Mississippi have adopted the new method, and Nebraska is considering it. The Governor of Louisiana also said the state must look for new ways to carry out executions, which have not taken place there since 2010.

The effort comes at a time when America is becoming increasingly divided over the death penalty. Opinion polls show that a majority still favors the death penalty, but the margin has narrowed in recent years from 80 percent in favor in 1994 to the mid-1950s. according to Gallup. Many states have failed to carry out the death penalty due to a series of botched executions and the increasing difficulty of obtaining lethal drugs.

That stalemate is especially evident in Ohio, where Republican Governor Mike DeWine said in a 2020 interview that lethal injection was 'impossible from a practical point of view'. The governor has repeatedly asked himself: as recently as last week – whether the death penalty, which he supported when the state introduced it in 1981, is an effective deterrent given the long delays in its implementation.

Efforts to abolish the state death penalty have failed in recent years, despite a coalition released a poll this week showing that a slim majority of Ohioans support replacing it with life without parole.

Mr. DeWine has urged lawmakers to seek an alternative to lethal injection, given a federal judge's ruling that the execution method in Ohio could cause “severe pain and unnecessary suffering.” However, his office declined to comment Tuesday on whether the governor would support nitrogen gas asphyxiation.

The Ohio bill was introduced five days after Alabama used nitrogen in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, one of three men convicted of killing Elizabeth Sennett in 1988. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said it a textbook execution and suggested it could be an example for other states. “Alabama did it, and now you can do it too,” he said.

But critics continued to question its application, noting that descriptions from several witnesses contradicted the state's pre-execution claim that the use of nitrogen gas would cause unconsciousness “in seconds.”