In 1992, Sepulvado faced charges for the tragic death of his 6-year-old stepson, who arrived home from school in soiled underwear. It was alleged that Sepulvado struck the child on the head with a screwdriver and subjected him to scalding water. Following his conviction for murder in 1993, he received a death sentence.
His attorney, federal public defender Shawn Nolan, revealed in a statement that doctors had recently diagnosed Sepulvado with a terminal illness and recommended he be placed in hospice care. Nolan noted that his client had experienced significant physical and cognitive deterioration over the past few years. “The passing of Christopher Sepulvado in the prison infirmary speaks volumes about the state of capital punishment in Louisiana,” Nolan remarked. He criticized the notion of executing a frail and dying man by forcing him to inhale toxic gas, calling the practice barbaric.
Prior to his death, Sepulvado had been taken to New Orleans earlier in the week for a surgical procedure but was sent back to the prison on Friday night. Louisiana authorities announced plans to resume executing death row inmates at the beginning of the month after a 15-year hiatus, mainly due to issues related to securing lethal injection drugs and a lack of political will. Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, advocated for the reintroduction of nitrogen gas as a method of execution after the legislature expanded the modalities to include electrocution and nitrogen gas the previous year.
In a statement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill expressed that “justice should have been served long ago,” adding that the state did not fulfill its duty during Sepulvado’s lifetime. His execution had been scheduled for March 17. Another inmate, Jessie Hoffman, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996, was set for execution just a day later, on March 18. Hoffman had previously contested Louisiana’s lethal injection process in 2012, arguing it constituted cruel and unusual punishment. A federal judge recently reopened that lawsuit after it had been dismissed last year due to the absence of scheduled executions.
Alabama conducted the first execution utilizing nitrogen gas last year, and since then, four individuals have been executed using this method.
