BATON ROUGE — Gov. Jeff Landry said Monday the state had adopted a new execution protocol that will let prison officials use nitrogen gas to kill death row inmates.

A brief summary of the protocol says that a "specialized mask" would be placed on an inmate and that pure nitrogen gas would be administered until the inmate was dead. Anti-death penalty groups say the suffocation method is inhumane; Alabama executed a man last year via nitrogen hypoxia.

The group Jews against Gassing had asked lawmakers last year to reverse their earlier decision to use gas, saying Louisiana should not use an execution method similar to one that Nazis used to kill Jews during the Holocaust.

Landry said he wanted to resume executions "to uphold the promises" made to the families of those who died from violence.

The governor did not provide a timetable for the next Louisiana execution, but said he expected prosecutors and the courts to "move swiftly." The state Department of Corrections and Public Safety did not return a call seeking comment. Attorney General Liz Murrill said "I look forward" to judges upholding any death warrants that may be signed.

According to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center, which maintains data on capital punishment issues, Louisiana executed 28 men between 1983 and 2010. The state currently has 63 people on death row.

Inmates may also be executed by electrocution or lethal injection under the law, according to the DPIC.