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A many sick man who spent more than 30 years on the death in Louisiana for the murder of his stepson has died days after a March date of March is scheduled for his execution by nitrogen gas.
Christopher Sepulvado, 81, died on Saturday in Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, “of natural causes due to complications arising from his existing medical conditions,” according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
Sepulvado was charged with the death of his 6-year-old stepson in 1992 after the boy came home from school with dirty underwear. Sepulvado was accused of hitting him with a screwdriver and plunged him into sloping water. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1993.
His lawyer, Federal Public Defender Shawn Nolan, said in a statement on Sunday that doctors recently determined that Sepulvado was sick and recommended Hospice care. Nolan has described the “significant” physical and cognitive decline in his client over the past few years.
“Christopher Sepulvado’s death overnight in prison is a sad remark about the condition of the death penalty in Louisiana,” Nolan said. ‘The idea that the state was planning to pull this small, weakened, dying old man to a chair and forcing him to catch toxic gas in his failed lungs is simply barbaric. “
According to Nolan, Sepulvado was sent to New Orleans earlier this week for surgery, but it was returned to prison on Friday night.
Louisiana officials decided to carry out death sentence earlier this month after a 15 -year break driven by a lack of political interest and the inability to obtain legal injection medicine. Republican Governor Jeff Landry has demanded to continue with a new nitrogen gas performance protocol after the state’s GOP-dominated legislature last year expanded the performance methods of the death performance to include electroculation and nitrogen gas.
Louisiana lawyer -General Liz Murrill said in a statement that “justice must have been long ago” and Louisiana did not deliver it in his lifetime. ‘
The execution of Sepulvado was scheduled for March 17. Another man, Jessie Hoffman, was convicted of first -degree murder in 1996 and planned on March 18 for execution. Hoffman initially challenged Louisiana’s deadly injection protocol in 2012 on the grounds that the method was cruel and unusual punishment. A federal judge reopened the lawsuit on Friday after it was rejected in 2022 because the state did not plan any executions.
The country’s first execution using nitrogen gas was performed in Alabama last year, which has now performed four people using the method.
