Christopher Sepulvado, an 81-year-old Louisiana man who would be executed, died on Saturday evening according to his lawyers, only a few days after a judge had spoken an execution date.
Sepulvado would be executed on March 17 for the murder of his 6-year-old stepson in 1992 after a judge had granted a death sentence on 11 February. He died in the penitentiary of the state of Louisiana in Angola, located in the eastern part of the eastern part.
Lawyers for Sepulvado in a statement announced his death said he suffered from serious physical and mental decline in recent years.
“The idea that the state was planning to hold this small, vulnerable, dying old man to a chair and forcing him to breathe toxic gas in his failing lungs is simply barbaric,” said Shawn Nolan, the lawyer of Sepulvado , in the statement.
Lawyers said that Sepulvado was sent to a hospital in New Orleans to amputation a leg that rose Gangreen that led to Sepsis, but was returned to prison on Friday to be prepared for the execution.
The hands of a prisoner in a criminal cell wing in the prison of Angola on October 14, 2013. The state fine of the state of Louisiana, also known as Angola, and the nickname the “Alcatraz of the South” and “De Boerderij” is a prison farm in maximum Security in Louisiana managed by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections. It is called Angola after the former plantation that occupied this territory, which was named after the African country that was the origin of many slaved Africans who were brought to Louisiana in slavery in slavery.
A statement from the Louisiana Department of Safety and Corrections said that Sepulvado died, “of natural causes as a result of complications arising from its existing medical conditions.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill argued that Sepulvado should have been executed earlier in a statement to USA Today.
“Justice should have been delivered a long time ago for the horrible act of brutal and then burning a defenseless six -year -old boy,” said Murrill.
Louisiana would use the controversial implementation method
Sepulvado is said to have been executed in 15 years in Louisiana and the first person to be executed by nitrogen gas in the state.
Jessie Hoffman, 46, will now be the first to be confronted with the new execution method on March 18. Hoffman was convicted of the murder of Mary “Molly” Elliot in 1996.
Hoffman, Sepulvado and seven other prisoners are plaintiffs in a federal court case for civil rights that challenge the constitution of Louisiana's death penalty. Lawyers for the group submitted an emergency effort in the case to stop the nitrogen gas method after the Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced her implementation, referring to a lack of critical information about the purchasing of gas and the training for staff, according to the Louisiana Illuminator.
Landry said in a statement in which the implementation was announced that “Justice will be delivered” with the controversial new implementation method.
“For a long time, Louisiana did not succeed in fulfilling the promises of victims of the most violent crimes of our state,” said Landry.
The use of nitrogen gas in executions has drawn critics. The Reverend Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser for prisoners in the death cell and anti-death penalty activist, was a witness of the first execution of nitrogen gas in the United States that of Kenny Eugene Smith on January 25, 2024 and described it as if as if “Horrible.”
With nitrogen hypoxia is used, the prisoner breathes pure nitrogen through a mask that moves oxygen in their system. Proponents claim that it is an almost immediate and painless method. Opponents, including Hood, claim that it has largely not been tested and comes down to torture. Some opponents have claimed that the use of nitrogen gas is a violation of the eighth change protection against cruel and unusual punishment
Hood accused Landry of “cowardice” for approving the method in a statement to USA Today when it was announced.
This year, the US has carried out five prisoners so far, with six executions planned in March. There are 57 prisoners in the death cell in Louisiana, according to the Shreveport Times – part of the USA Today network.
Contributions: Greta Cross
This article originally appeared on USA Today: La Death Row Prisoner Christopher Sepulvado dies before the implementation date
