A New Orleans-area group decries the state’s efforts to use nitrogen gas to execute death row inmates because, members say, such a method echoes the Holocaust.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch effort to block Louisiana’s first execution using nitrogen gas, which is scheduled for Tuesday evening.

Louisiana used nitrogen gas to put Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, to death Tuesday evening in the state's first execution in 15 years. Nitrogen gas has been used just four other times to execute a person in the United States — all in Alabama, the only other state with a protocol for the method.