BATON ROUGE — Louisiana's attorney general said Wednesday a federal judge was wrong to give a condemned prisoner additional time to claim under the U.S. Constitution that asphyxiating him with nitrogen gas might be a cruel or unusual punishment.

Without ruling on the merit of his claim, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick said Tuesday that Jessie Hoffman deserved a chance to argue that Louisiana had access to means of execution that would invoke less psychological terror. Attorney General Liz Murrill said Wednesday he didn't and that Hoffman should die by nitrogen hypoxia next Tuesday.

Hoffman was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering Mary "Molly" Elliot of New Orleans in 1996. The woman was shot execution-style near the Pearl River in St. Tammany Parish.

Murrill said that since Alabama courts and the U.S. Supreme Court have upheld the constitutionality of nitrogen hypoxia, Dick was wrong to ignore the precedents. Hoffman's suggestion that Louisiana use a firing squad instead would actually inflict more physical pain than asphyxiation, Murrill wrote to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

"By pretending that these Alabama court decisions do not exist ..., the court has effectively thumbed its nose at those courts, basic common sense and logic," Louisiana's lawyers wrote. "Indeed, the court's refusal to engage with those decisions effectively admits that there is no way to overcome their reasoning."

But Dick had said witness recollections of the Alabama executions posed significant questions. Evidence introduced at a hearing in Baton Rouge last Friday noted that the inmates who resisted seemed to take longer to die and may have been in distress.

Dick said that left Hoffman in a position where he would have to be a willing partner in his own execution if he wanted to die quickly.

She also said that, since Louisiana didn't adopt a nitrogen protocol until last month and didn't share it with his lawyers until last week, the record was so undeveloped that she couldn't in good conscience send Hoffman to his death without fully considering his arguments. She said Hoffman will eventually be executed, but she wants to ensure it is done in a humane manner.

Hoffman's lawyers said Wednesday that Murrill was attempting an "end-run" around the inmate's constitutional rights.

"The state of Louisiana is trying to avoid scrutiny of its cruel and experimental execution protocol," lawyer Cecelia Kappel said. "The AG’s appellate brief today attempts to place the blame on Jessie Hoffman for the rushed nature of these proceedings."

The judge rejected Hoffman's claim that Louisiana could use a consumable mix of sedatives and heart-stopping drugs to kill him, and also said that a hypoxia would not interfere with his ability to practice Buddhist breathing exercises as he dies.

Hoffman had been scheduled to die next Tuesday evening at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.