Senate Minority Leader Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, speaks against House Bill 1489 on the Senate floor on March 11, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
State lawmakers on Tuesday sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would allow executions by nitrogen gas in Arkansas.
If Gov. Sarah Huckabee signs House Bill 1489 into law, Arkansas would become the fifth state to authorize this method of execution. Alabama, the only state to have used nitrogen gas, has executed four inmates in this manner since January 2024.
Legislators in Nebraska and Ohio have filed bills similar to Arkansas’ as officials search for alternatives to lethal injection because of the challenges they’ve faced in securing the necessary drugs. South Carolina last week carried out the nation’s first execution by firing squad since 2010.
Arkansas last conducted executions in 2017 when the state put four men to death over the course of a week in advance of its drug supply expiring.
Co-sponsor Sen. Blake Johnson, R-Corning, told the Arkansas Senate Tuesday that HB 1489 is needed because the state has a responsibility to citizens and death row inmates to take this issue seriously and administer the death penalty.
“I’m not here to advocate for a death for death; we are preserving life by protecting life,” Johnson said. “These individuals, if they walk in our society, can take lives, and I will protect life through this method.”
There are currently 25 inmates on death row in Arkansas, 11 of whom have exhausted all of their appeals, according to Department of Corrections Communications Director Rand Champion. The longest standing death row inmate is Bruce Ward, who was sentenced in 1990.
The department does not have a stance on House Bill 1489, Champion said.
Senate Minority Leader Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, said he’s opposed to capital punishment not just because of his Catholic faith, but because “it’s punishment that you cannot undo,” noting that approximately 200 people sentenced to die since 1973 were later been exonerated.
Speaking in opposition to HB 1489, Leding argued that execution by nitrogen gas is not a painless death and that the colorless, odorless gas could accidentally kill prison staff if not administered correctly.
“I don’t know that there’s a humane way to take a person’s life, but if we are going to take on this responsibility, I don’t believe we can do it carelessly. We have to take it seriously,” he said. “We can’t just reach for what’s most convenient. I understand the challenges in trying to do this, but our response to a horrific act of violence cannot be a horrific act of violence.”
Speaking in favor of the bill, Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, acknowledged there are people who may have been wrongly executed, but he urged his colleagues to remember the victims of crime while deciding how to vote on the bill.
“I want to also acknowledge that we need to stand up for the victims because they didn’t want to be in the position they were put on in the first place anymore than you and I want to be put in the position that today we’re going to vote for this bill,” Hammer said.
Kaleem Nazeem with the nonprofit group DecARcerate advocated for focusing on rehabilitation instead of retribution during the Senate Judiciary Committee discussion of the bill on Monday. Nazeem was incarcerated for nearly 29 years, but was released following a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that juveniles convicted of murder cannot receive a mandatory life sentence without parole.
Arkansas lawmakers give initial approval to bill permitting nitrogen gas executions
“I think every human has a redemptive spirit, and I think as a society we should look for alternatives to killing people instead of rehabilitating people and try to look at the humanity in them,” he said.
Members of the public who testified against the bill last month and again Monday, called nitrogen gas executions inhumane, experimental and expensive. Opponents also criticized the lack of implementation details in HB 1489, including whether nitrogen gas would be administered through a mask or in a gas chamber, what purity of gas would be required and the criteria of who and how nitrogen gas would be selected as the method of execution.
Dylan Jacobs, deputy solicitor general for the Arkansas Attorney General’s office, told the House Judiciary Committee last month that the exact protocol of the execution, including how to keep staff and witnesses safe, will be promulgated by the state Department of Corrections. Jacobs said it wasn’t necessary to include those specifics in the bill, which could tie the department’s hands to perform the execution in a particular way.
The Arkansas Senate approved HB 1489 by a vote of 26 to 9. Republican Sens. Justin Boyd of Fort Smith, Jonathan Dismang of Searcy and Clint Penzo of Springdale joined all six Democrats in voting against the bill.
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