By Jonathan Allen (Reuters) – If federal courts give the green light, Alabama plans on Thursday to pioneer the first new method of judicial execution since lethal injections were introduced in 1982. The new method is asphyxiation using an inert gas: Alabama Department of Corrections executioners will strap to the prisoner’s face a commercially made industrial-safety respirator mask attached to a canister of pressurized pure nitrogen intended to rob him of oxygen. The moment is being closely watched, with implications both for other states that use capital punishment and for abolitionists who s…