Lawmakers bidding to resume Louisiana executions after 14-year pause OK new death penalty methods

By SARA CLINE
Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature has given final pasageto a bill that would add electroctuion and the use of nitrogen gas as methods of carrying out the death penalty. The bill’s passage came Thursday as part of a push by tough-on-crime lawmakers to resume executions in Louisiana after a 14-year pause. The legislation now heads to the desk of conservative Gov. Jeff Landry who has signaled his support of the bill. It follows similar steps by other reliably red states that have expanded methods — from firing squads in Idaho to, the newest method of using nitrogen gas to deprive a condemned inmate of oxygen in Alabama’s death chamber.