[JURIST] The Oklahoma state senate [official website] passed a bill [HB 1879, PDF] on Thursday that would allow for the use of nitrogen gas in executions if lethal injection is ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court [official website], or if the drugs become unavailable. If signed by Governor Mary Fallin [official website], Oklahoma would be the first state in the nation to execute inmates with nitrogen gas. Under the new method, nitrogen would be delivered via face mask, depriving the inmate of oxygen. Under current Oklahoma law, the state is compelled to use the electric chair if lethal injection is unavailable. The third option is a firing squad. Opponents of the bill have voiced concern that the nitrogen gas method is untested, and some states have banned its use to put animals to sleep. Executions in Oklahoma have been put on hold while the US Supreme Court considers Glossip v. Gross [SCOTUSblog backgrounder], a case determining whether the state’s three-drug method of lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment’s [text] prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injection [JURIST archive] and execution methods have been at the forefront of the death penalty debate for the past few years. Earlier this month the Delaware Senate voted to repeal [JURIST report] the death penalty and the legislation includes an exemption for the 15 inmates currently on Delaware’s death row. In March Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill [JURIST report] to restore the firing squad as a method of execution, making Utah one of the few states with that option. Like in Oklahoma, if drugs used for lethal injections are unavailable, a firing squad would be allowed. Also last month more than a dozen [JURIST report] former state attorneys general asked the US Supreme Court to rule Oklahoma’s use of the three-drug execution cocktail unconstitutional. Oklahoma became the face [JURIST report] of the legal injection drug debate last year after death row inmate Clayton Lockett died of an apparent heart attack shortly after doctors called off a failed attempt to execute him using a lethal injection drug called midazolam.