On Tuesday evening, March 18, the state of Louisiana executed Jessie Hoffman Jr., putting him to death with nitrogen gas.
Faith leaders from around the state gathered at Angola Prison to support Hoffman’s family and to hold a public vigil in protest of the execution. Congregations around the state also held vigils at their churches and places of worship. As Hoffman was a Buddhist practitioner, Buddhist leaders came, as well, to hold a meditation sit on the grounds near Angola.
Unlike other states, and in previous eras, officials would not disclose the exact time of the execution. A window was given — between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. — which left concerned individuals largely unable to know just when their loved one would move through the execution protocols.
Jessie Hoffman Jr.
Hoffman’s killing at the hands of the state represents the first execution to be carried out in 15 years in Louisiana. Under previous administrations, Gov. John Bel Edwards did not pursue or encourage attorneys to carry out death sentences, and there remained judicial concerns about securing the drug compounds to execute someone by lethal injection.
Under Louisiana’s new governor and former attorney general, Jeff Landry, legislators were encouraged to find alternative methods of killing Death Row inmates. Following the practice of Alabama, the legislature approved the use of nitrogen gas to asphyxiate inmates in a manner that has been deemed too inhumane and, thus, illegal, for euthanizing animals.
Landry, however, approved of the method and ignored calls from business leaders, faith leaders, members of Hoffman’s family, and family members of the victim to stop the execution. The husband of the victim, Molly Elliott, recently stated that the execution of Hoffman would not bring him closure and that he had concerns about the execution being carried out. Days before the execution, the sister-in-law of the murder victim also came forward, asking the governor to halt the state-sanctioned murder.
“Pro-life Landry would not listen to even the concerns of the family of the murder victim.”
Still, pro-life Landry would not listen to even the concerns of the family of the murder victim. Despite knowing of Hoffman’s horribly abusive childhood, and despite having securely detained him for 28 years, such that he was not a threat to the public, Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill insisted on carrying out this sentence, just as they insisted on carrying out a similar sentence on 81-year-old Christopher Sepulvado, a gentleman so ill that he died of natural causes before his execution could be carried out.
Banner hung at St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church in New Orleans.
Jessie Hoffman, like many individuals on Death Row, was no longer the same person he was when he committed his crime at the young age of 18. He developed a faith practice, he maintained loving contact with his family, and he matured over time. He served nearly 30 years in prison, and he had no opportunity for parole or release.
There is, then, no moral reason to carry out an execution of this nature other than pure vengeance. Worse yet, the active pursuit of new ways to kill people (with nitrogen gas) displays an utter lack of moral conscience on the part of Landry, Murrill and other elected officials.
The death penalty, in any form, is barbaric. Killing an individual in return for killing another may satisfy a certain uncivilized definition of justice, but there are also other definitions of justice, other approaches, and it baffles the mind that self-proclaimed Christian leaders, such as Murrill and Landry, are both uninterested in these other forms and actively choose to carry out death sentences, particularly when Landry has the legal power to stop the murder.
After the execution, officials charged with the task of killing Hoffman said the execution was “flawless.” If we now occupy a space in which a human being can be killed in a “flawless” manner, then Christians must pray for the wickedness of these flawless killers — for the blood on their hands, for a softening of their hearts and for a transformation of the deadly type of Christianity they practice.
Marc Boswell serves as pastor of St. James Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans.
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