Louisiana death row inmate Christopher Sepulvado dies before execution date

Christopher Sepulvado, an 81-year-old Louisiana man who was scheduled to be executed, died Saturday night according to his lawyers, just days after a judge 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 judge granted a death warrant on Feb. 11. He died at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, located in the eastern part of the state.

Lawyers for Sepulvado in a statement announcing his death said he suffered from severe physical and mental decline in recent years.

“The idea that the State was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric,” Shawn Nolan, Sepulvado’s attorney, said in the statement.

Lawyers said Sepulvado was sent to a hospital in New Orleans to amputate a leg that contracted gangrene leading to sepsis but was returned to the prison Friday to be prepared for the execution.

A statement from the Louisiana Department of Safety and Corrections said that Sepulvado died, “from natural causes as a result of complications arising from his pre-existing medical conditions.”

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill argued Sepulvado should have been executed sooner in a statement to USA TODAY.

“Justice should have been delivered long ago for the heinous act of brutally beating then scalding to death a defenseless six-year-old boy,” Murrill said.

Louisiana was set to use controversial execution method

Sepulvado would have been the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years and the first person executed in the state by nitrogen gas.

Jessie Hoffman, 46, will now be the first to face the new execution method on March 18. Hoffman was convicted for the 1996 murder of Mary “Molly” Elliot.

Hoffman, Sepulvado and seven other inmates are plaintiffs in a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s death penalty. Lawyers for the group filed an emergency effort in the case to stop the nitrogen gas method after Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced its implementation, citing a lack of critical information about sourcing the gas and training for staff, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.

Landry said in a statement announcing the implementation that “justice will be dispensed” with the controversial new execution method.

“For too long, Louisiana has failed to uphold the promises made to victims of our State’s most violent crimes,” Landry said.

The use of nitrogen gas in executions has drawn critics. The Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual advisor for death row inmates and anti-death penalty activist, was a witness to the first nitrogen gas execution in the United States − that of Kenny Eugene Smith on Jan. 25, 2024 − and described it as “horrific.”

With nitrogen hypoxia is used, the inmate breathes pure nitrogen through a mask that displaces oxygen in their system. Proponents claim it is an almost instant and painless method. Opponents, including Hood, claim it is largely untried and amounts to torture. Some opponents have argued the use of nitrogen gas is a breach of Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment

Hood accused Landry of “cowardice” for approving the method in a statement to USA TODAY when it was announced.

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, according to the Shreveport Times − a part of the USA TODAY Network.

Contributing: Greta Cross

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LA death row inmate Christopher Sepulvado dies before execution date

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