Four States to Execute Murderers This Week

On March 18 the state of Louisiana executed rapist/murderer Jessie Hoffman. Anna Young of the New York Post reports that  Hoffman was executed by nitrogen gas. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1996 kidnapping, rape and execution-style murder of 28-year-old Molly Elliott. Hoffman’s lawyers argued that using nitrogen gas for executions is cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment. They also claimed that using the gas interfered with his Buddhist meditative breathing before he died. Their last minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected by a 5-4 vote with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch dissenting. Alabama used the widely available colorless and odorless gas to put down four murderers without incident last year. Pilar Aries of Fox News reports that Arizona executed murderer Aaron Gunches by lethal injection Wednesday. Gunches was sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend’s ex-husband outside of Mesa Arizona in 2002. He refused legal efforts to stop his execution.

Oklahoma executed Wendell Grissom by lethal injection on Thursday. Sean Murphy of the Associated Press reports that Grissom, an habitual felon, and an accomplice murdered Amber Matthews, 23, during a 2004 home invasion robbery. Matthews was shot twice in the head. Her friend Dreu Kopf was also shot but survived. Grissom’s attorneys did not dispute his guilt but argued that he was brain damaged.

Landon Mion of Fox News reports that Florida will execute rapist and double murderer Edward James on Thursday night. In 1993 James raped and murdered Toni Neuner, an eight-year-old girl, and her grandmother Betty Dick, 58.  He strangled the little girl to death and stabbed her grandmother at least twenty times.  James plead guilty to the murders. His attorneys argued that due to his “cognitive decline” it would be cruel and unusual to execute him.