Suffocation by Design: The Final Breaths of America's Newest Execution Method

When Alabama carried out the first execution by nitrogen hypoxia in January 2024, officials promised the public a humane, painless death.

Jeff Hood was in the execution chamber. A priest who has accompanied condemned men to their final moments, Hood witnessed the nation's newest method of execution firsthand. What he saw-and what he documents here-stands in stark contrast to the assurances offered by government officials.

Part eyewitness testimony, part legal history, part investigative scholarship, Suffocation by Design traces the rise of nitrogen hypoxia from an untested legislative proposal to one of the most controversial execution methods in modern American history. Drawing on court records, medical evidence, legislative debates, eyewitness accounts, and Hood's own experiences inside execution chambers, the book examines every nitrogen execution carried out in the United States and the constitutional battles that followed.

The expanded second edition includes major new developments that transformed the national debate, including the landmark federal litigation challenging nitrogen hypoxia, the first permanent injunction issued against the method, appellate rulings, Supreme Court developments, and an updated analysis of the legal future of nitrogen executions.

Written by a priest, scholar, and witness, this is more than a history of an execution method. It is a detailed record of what happened behind prison walls, a study of law and public policy, and a challenge to the claims that have shaped the modern death penalty. Whether you support capital punishment or oppose it, Suffocation by Design invites you to examine the evidence, confront the eyewitness testimony, and decide for yourself what was done in the name of justice.

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a theologian and spiritual advisor to death row inmates nationwide. He has accompanied over a dozen men to their executions and was the first spiritual advisor to be present for a nitrogen hypoxia execution. Rev. Hood has been profiled widely, including in the Rolling Stone documentary The Spiritual Advisor. He is the Founder of the Execution Intervention Project.