USA - Oklahoma. Committee advanced legislation that would allow nitrogen for executions

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 9-0 to advance legislation that would allow the state to utilize nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative method for executing death row prisoners. Authored by Sen. Anthony Sykes (R), Senate Bill 794, states that nitrogen hypoxia will be used to carry out death sentences in the event that an appellate court rules the state's existing lethal injection procedure to be unconstitutional. If passed, the method would become effective on Nov. 1. It would cost about $300,000 to build a gas chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, according to a fiscal analysis. Legislators in Oklahoma are "grasping at ways to kill people that at first blush seem an improvement or humane, but when you actually do these things is when the problems arise," Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told msnbc. Dieter said it appears the lawmakers are trying to divert attention from the controversial drugs by introducing a new process, which remains untried and unexplored. "I think this is their effort to say, 'Allow us to have our lethal injection drugs, our old drugs, lest we go to something even more novel and perhaps risky,'" he told msnbc.