Christopher Sepulvado, an 81-year-old Louisiana man who was scheduled to be executed, died Saturday evening in keeping with his attorneys, simply days after a choose handed down an execution date.
Sepulvado was to be executed on March 17 for the murder of his 6-year-old stepson in 1992 after a choose granted a loss of life warrant on Feb. 11. He died on the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, positioned within the japanese a part of the state.
Legal professionals for Sepulvado in a press release saying his loss of life mentioned he suffered from extreme bodily and psychological decline lately.
“The concept the State was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying previous man to a chair and drive him to breathe poisonous fuel into his failing lungs is solely barbaric,” Shawn Nolan, Sepulvado’s legal professional, mentioned within the assertion.
Legal professionals mentioned Sepulvado was despatched to a hospital in New Orleans to amputate a leg that contracted gangrene resulting in sepsis however was returned to the jail Friday to be ready for the execution.
A prisoner’s arms inside a punishment cell wing at Angola jail on Oct. 14, 2013. The Louisiana State Penitentiary, also called Angola, and nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the South” and “The Farm” is a maximum-security jail farm in Louisiana operated by the Louisiana Division of Public Security & Corrections. It’s named Angola after the previous plantation that occupied this territory, which was named for the African nation that was the origin of many enslaved Africans delivered to Louisiana in slavery instances.
An announcement from the Louisiana Division of Security and Corrections mentioned that Sepulvado died, “from pure causes on account of problems arising from his pre-existing medical situations.”
Louisiana Lawyer Basic Liz Murrill argued Sepulvado ought to have been executed sooner in a press release to USA TODAY.
“Justice ought to have been delivered way back for the heinous act of brutally beating then scalding to loss of life a defenseless six-year-old boy,” Murrill mentioned.
Louisiana was set to make use of controversial execution methodology
Sepulvado would have been the primary individual executed in Louisiana in 15 years and the primary individual executed within the state by nitrogen fuel.
Jessie Hoffman, 46, will now be the primary to face the brand new execution methodology on March 18. Hoffman was convicted for the 1996 murder of Mary “Molly” Elliot.
Hoffman, Sepulvado and 7 different inmates are plaintiffs in a federal civil rights lawsuit difficult the constitutionality of Louisiana’s loss of life penalty. Legal professionals for the group filed an emergency effort within the case to cease the nitrogen fuel methodology after Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry introduced its implementation, citing an absence of important details about sourcing the fuel and coaching for workers, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.
Landry said in a statement saying the implementation that “justice might be distributed” with the controversial new execution methodology.
“For too lengthy, Louisiana has didn’t uphold the guarantees made to victims of our State’s most violent crimes,” Landry mentioned.
Using nitrogen fuel in executions has drawn critics. The Rev. Jeff Hood, a non secular advisor for loss of life row inmates and anti-death penalty activist, was a witness to the first nitrogen gas execution in the USA − that of Kenny Eugene Smith on Jan. 25, 2024 − and described it as “horrific.”
With nitrogen hypoxia is used, the inmate breathes pure nitrogen via a masks that displaces oxygen of their system. Proponents declare it’s an nearly instantaneous and painless methodology. Opponents, together with Hood, declare it’s largely untried and quantities to torture. Some opponents have argued the usage of nitrogen fuel is a breach of Eighth Modification protections in opposition to merciless and strange punishment
Hood accused Landry of “cowardice” for approving the tactic in a press release to USA TODAY when it was introduced.
The U.S. has executed five inmates so far this year, with six executions scheduled in March. There are 57 inmates on death row in Louisiana, in keeping with the Shreveport Occasions − part of the USA TODAY Community.
Contributing: Greta Cross
This text initially appeared on USA TODAY: LA death row inmate Christopher Sepulvado dies before execution date
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