Professor Deborah Denno was interviewed by National Public Radio about Oklahoma’s decision to use nitrogen gas as its primary execution method.
The use of nitrogen hypoxia was apparently conceived within the pages of the conservative magazine, the National Review. A 1995 article titled, “Killing With Kindness: Capital Punishment by Nitrogen Asphyxiation,” was written by Stuart Creque, a technology consultant from California.
Twenty years later, a former prosecutor and criminal justice professor-turned legislator introduced a bill to legalize execution-by-nitrogen in Oklahoma. He got the idea from an article pushing nitrogen hypoxia in Slate magazine. That bill passed and signed into law.
Other lawyers and professors, like Lawrence Gist II, make up the base of support for nitrogen hypoxia (though Gist claims he opposes the death penalty, he believes the method is preferable as long as the government is in the business of killing people).
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[D]eborah Denno, a Fordham professor and preeminent death penalty expert, told Bellware that every generation believes its execution methods are more humane and effective than the last. Dr. Joel Zivot, assistant professor of anesthesiology and surgery at Emory University School of Medicine, told her medical ethics prohibit doctors from even testing such a premise in the first place.
While some medical professionals believe there is a role for them in reducing suffering during executions, the American Medical Association and the American Society of Anesthesiologists have vigorously opposed it. But rarely if ever have state medical boards, who have authority over doctors licenses, punished those who do participate.
