Supreme Court wont delay Louisiana execution as Gorsuch, liberal justices dissent

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote declined to stop Louisiana from carrying out its first execution in 15 years later Tuesday with Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the court's three liberal justices in agreeing to delay it.

Jessie Hoffman, 46, is set to be executed for the 1996 kidnapping, rape and murder of Molly Elliott, making Louisiana the second state to carry out an execution by nitrogen gas. The Supreme Court has also declined to step in since Alabama began employing the method last year. 

Five of the court’s conservatives — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — refused Hoffman’s final appeal to delay his execution without comment. 

The three liberal justices dissented in that decision, joined by Gorsuch, President Trump’s first appointee to the court.  

Though the liberal justices did not explain their reasoning, Gorsuch in a written dissent said he would’ve sent the case back to a lower court for another look at Hoffman’s claims that Louisiana’s nitrogen hypoxia method substantially burdens his right to practice his Buddhist faith under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) of 2000. 

Hoffman noted in his application that meditative breathing at the time of death carries profound spiritual significance in the Buddhist tradition. Gorsuch said a lower court was wrong to make its own finding “about the kind of breathing Mr. Hoffman’s faith requires” in rejecting his claims. 

“The Court of Appeals failed to confront the district court’s apparent legal error — or even to mention the RLUIPA claim Mr. Hoffman pressed on appeal. Perhaps that claim ultimately lacks merit. But the Fifth Circuit’s unexplained omission leaves this Court poorly positioned to assess it,” Gorsuch wrote. 

The Supreme Court rarely intervenes on an emergency basis to stop executions, having already denied several requests since the start of the year. 

In court filings, the Louisiana attorney general’s office insisted Hoffman had improperly waited until the last minute to file the appeal and the state wasn’t violating his protected rights. 

“Plaintiff has never argued that there is a legally appreciable difference between his breathing as he fades into unconsciousness by nitrogen hypoxia and his breathing as he would fade into unconsciousness after being shot by a firing squad,” the state attorney general’s office wrote in court filings.