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Thread: Christopher Sepulvado - Louisiana Death Row

  1. #121
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    I don't care if they go to the local vet to get the drugs for this guy...just get the drugs and get it done.
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #122
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Executions in Louisiana on hold until at least June

    Lawyers for a convicted child-killer and the state Department of Corrections were supposed to be in federal court Monday to schedule a trial on the constitutionality of Louisiana’s method of executing prisoners.

    Instead, the trial and Christopher Sepulvado’s execution have been delayed at least seven months as Louisiana figures out the best way to carry out the death penalty.

    By the time of the next hearing, Louisiana’s execution drugs will have expired. And state law spelling out how executions are carried out — and whether such details are kept secret — could change, too.

    Sepulvado, who was convicted of beating his stepson with a screwdriver and then submerging his body in scalding water, has won several stays of execution in the past two years. He argues that the state’s method of lethal injection violates his constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

    As part of that lawsuit, Sepulvado has sought to learn the exact procedure Louisiana will use to put him to death. The state has fought such disclosures in that lawsuit and in response to public-records requests.

    The purpose of today’s hearing was to set a trial date regarding the constitutionality of Louisiana’s lethal injection method. Last week, lawyers for the state asked to delay everything in the case until June 25; a judge agreed. The state will not carry out any executions in the meantime.

    In a court filing to explain why they wanted to delay the proceedings, lawyers for the Department of Corrections wrote that it’s a waste of time to move on with the case because “the facts and issues that are involved in this proceeding continue to be in a fluid state.”

    They continued: “It is believed that, by June 2015, the facts and issues that are ultimately to be litigated will become more settled, and the parties will then be in a better position to proceed forward with the litigation.”

    A spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Public Safety wouldn’t elaborate on what could change between now and June.

    One thing that could change is state law outlining how prisoners are killed, and whether the public knows the precise method. The 2015 legislative session will end two weeks before the new status conference.

    Like other states, Louisiana’s execution procedure has changed as lethal injection drugs become scarce or expire amidst national shortages. The lack of inventory has forced corrections officials around the country to adopt what death penalty opponents call “experimental” practices that in some cases have resulted in drawn-out executions.

    Last spring, Rep. Joseph P. Lopinto III, R-Metairie, introduced a bill that would have reinstated electrocution in Louisiana. Since 1991, lethal injection has been the only legal form of execution in the state.

    At the request of Department of Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc, Lopinto changed direction, dropping electrocution and adding language to make secret many details about executions. The bill would have kept confidential the name, address and other identifying information “of any person or entity that manufactures, compounds, prescribes, dispenses, supplies or administers” execution drugs. It also would have allowed the state to buy drugs from out-of-state suppliers not licensed in Louisiana.

    Other states, including Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and Oklahoma, have passed secrecy laws after botched and unusually long executions.

    In April, an Oklahoma prisoner, supposedly rendered unconscious, tried to rise from the gurney after his injections began. Oklahoma’s procedure, like Louisiana’s, called for midazolam, a sedative. The episode prompted Louisiana officials to say they would reconsider that method.

    Midazolam has been used in three unorthodox executions this year alone. It’s used as an anesthetic in executions, but it can cause breathing problems and cardiac arrest.

    Lopinto’s bill sailed through a Senate committee and the House, but he dropped it without explanation.

    The Lens wasn’t able to reach him to see if he would offer a similar bill next year.

    It’s also possible that the state could introduce a new method of execution such as nitrogen gas. “Nitrogen is the big thing,” LeBlanc told a legislative committee last spring, according to Slate.

    Although lethal injection is used by most states with the death penalty, other methods are allowed in some states. Electrocution is the most common, but a few states allow firing squads and hanging, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

    The other complication of the delayed trial is the expiration date of the state’s lethal injection drugs. Its supply of hydromorphone will expire in April and midazolam in January.

    Mercedes Montagnes, a lawyer for Sepulvado, said she doesn’t know if the state is trying to get more hydromorphone and midazolam or if it will come up with a new execution method before the trial.

    Regardless, the delay buys her client more time before he faces another death warrant.

    “All we know is that the state has requested an additional amount of time to nail down its protocol for execution,” Montagnes said via email. “We have no objection to this request.”

    http://thelensnola.org/2014/11/17/ex...at-least-june/

  3. #123
    Senior Member Member DStafford's Avatar
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    I had a taxi driver in New Orleans who said that state's license plate should say "Louisiana, the Do-Nothing State." I agree. Why is this man still breathing?

    -Dawn

  4. #124
    Senior Member Member OperaGhost84's Avatar
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    Because Lopinto and Leblance are eunuchs. They completely failed to realize that the execution method is going to get bogged down in court one way or the other and decided to lock the back door, go all eggs in one basket, drug secrecy or bust. They blinked. They failed to commit. Say what you want about Tennessee but at least they went all the way.
    I am vehemently against Murder. That's why I support the Death Penalty.

  5. #125
    Senior Member Member George's Avatar
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    Executions on hold for at least a year as Louisiana sorts out death penalty method

    Executions in Louisiana are on hold for at least a year because the state doesn’t have the drugs needed to put inmates to death, according to a court filing and a lawyer for a convicted child-killer.

    Lawyers for Christopher Sepulvado and the state Department of Corrections were supposed to be in federal court Thursday to schedule a trial on the constitutionality of Louisiana’s method of execution.

    Instead, a federal judge on Tuesday delayed the trial and Sepulvado’s execution — as well as four others on death row — until July 2016 as Louisiana tries to figure out how it can carry out the death penalty.

    This is the second time in a year that the state has asked to delay the trial.

    States around the country have struggled to execute prisoners because of shortages of lethal injection drugs. In a few cases, it’s taken an unusually long time for inmates to die from new drug combinations.

    In the motion to delay the hearing, Department of Corrections attorney James Hilburn wrote that “it would be a waste of resources and time to litigate this matter at present” because the facts in the case are changing. He wrote that he expects those issues to be “more settled” by July 2016.

    Hilburn declined to elaborate on the reasons for the delay.

    Louisiana’s current death-penalty protocol calls for a mix of hydromorphone and midazolam, the same drugs used last summer during an Arizona execution that took nearly two hours to complete. Louisiana’s last known supplies of the drugs expired earlier this year.

    Mercedes Montagnes, a lawyer for Sepulvado, said the state “came to us after they were unable to locate any legal source for lethal injection drugs and asked for another year to come up with a new method of execution or source of drugs.”

    Sepulvado, who was convicted of beating his stepson with a screwdriver and then submerging his body in scalding water, has delayed his execution several times in the past two years.

    In his lawsuit, he argues that the state’s execution method violates his constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

    As part of that lawsuit, Sepulvado has sought to learn the exact procedure Louisiana will use to put him to death. The state has fought such disclosures in court and in response to public-records requests filed by The Lens.

    Meanwhile, Louisiana corrections officials have gotten more creative in getting their hands on execution drugs and have considered new ways to carry out the death penalty.

    In January 2014, as Sepulvado’s last execution date approached, the Louisiana Department of Corrections turned to Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for one of the two drugs it needed to execute him.

    According to a hospital spokesman, the state lied to the Lake Charles pharmacist, saying the hydromorphone was for “a medical patient” rather than a prisoner on death row.

    “At no time was Memorial told the drug would be used for an execution,” spokesman Matt Felder said at the time.

    The state considered getting another drug from an out-of-state compounding pharmacy not licensed in Louisiana, which would have been illegal.

    In 2014, the Legislature considered reinstating electrocution. It’s been outlawed since 1991.

    At the request of Department of Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc, the bill was changed to drop electrocution and instead conceal details about executions, including the source of execution drugs. It was never passed.

    Other states, including Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma, have passed such secrecy laws.

    In February, Louisiana corrections officials asked legislators to allow them to use nitrogen, which has never been tried in the U.S. No bill was introduced.

    Death-penalty opponents have responded to drawn-out executions around the country by calling execution methods “experimental.”

    Last year, a prisoner in Oklahoma tried to rise from the gurney after his injections began. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of that state’s execution method.

    That execution used midazolam, one of the two drugs called for by Louisiana. It prompted Louisiana officials to say they would reconsider the drug.

    The state has not said what method it would use instead.

    “Obviously whatever plan the state comes up with will have to be evaluated by the court for its constitutionality,” Montagnes said.

    Other death-row inmates who won stays of execution with Tuesday’s ruling are:

    Jesse Hoffman, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for kidnapping, raping and fatally shooting Covington resident Mary “Molly” Elliot in 1996.

    Bobby Hampton, who was convicted of robbing a liquor store in Shreveport and causing the death of employee Philip Russel Coleman in 1995.

    Nathaniel Code, a Shreveport man convicted of four killings between 1984 and 1987.

    Kevan Brumfield, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995 for the 1993 murder of Baton Rouge police officer Betty Smothers.

    Of the five, only Sepulvado has been given an execution date.

    Lawyers are set to meet July 11, 2016, to set a new trial date in his lawsuit.

    http://thelensnola.org/2015/06/23/ex...enalty-method/

  6. #126
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    State asks to rule out next Louisiana execution before 2018

    BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Louisiana won’t carry out its next scheduled execution before January 2018 if a federal judge approves a request by state Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office.

    In a court filing Tuesday, Landry’s office asked for an 18-month extension to a judge’s order that delayed the execution of Christopher Sepulvado.

    A federal lawsuit challenging Louisiana’s method of lethal injection has kept Sepulvado’s execution on hold since February 2014. The state’s execution protocols changed as drugs used in lethal injections became scarce.

    U.S. District Judge James Brady previously ruled out executing Sepulvado and at least four other death-row inmates before July 11, 2016. Landry’s office says it would be “prudent” to extend the order until Jan. 8, 2018, given the litigation’s “fluid state.”

    Sepulvado was convicted of murdering his 6-year-old stepson in 1992.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-execution-be/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  7. #127
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Judge's death leads to another order to halt Louisiana executions

    By Vickie Welborn
    KTBS

    BATON ROUGE – Convicted child killer Christopher Sepulvado was two days away from his scheduled execution in 2014 when a federal judge stopped it.

    Now another federal judge has blocked the state of Louisiana from carrying out any executions. The order is extended indefinitely after the death of U.S. District Judge James Brady of Baton Rouge, the federal judge who issued it.

    A lawsuit challenging the state's lethal injection protocols has kept death sentences on hold since 2014. Sepulvado, condemned to die for killing his stepson in DeSoto Parish more than 20 years ago, was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Feb. 5, 2014.

    Brady, who died on Dec. 9 after a brief illness, oversaw the lawsuit and agreed to order the temporary stay of all executions.

    Brady's order was scheduled to expire next Monday, but U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick agreed this week to extend it until another judge is assigned to the case.

    At issue then – and now – is the state’s method of execution. Sepulvado and other death row inmates challenged it after the Louisiana Department of Corrections in 2013 confirmed a move from a three-drug mixture to a single dose of pentobarbital in the execution process. Then weeks before Sepulvado’s execution date, DOC said it was expanding the protocol to include a two-drug mix of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a painkiller.

    The combination was used to execute an Ohio killer and reportedly caused him to gasp and prolonged his death for almost 25 minutes. Sepulvado’s attorneys wanted to prevent their client from “cruel and unusual punishment” so they filed a flurry of more court challenges, one of which called for sanctions on the defense team and continued to demand more information on the execution protocol.

    In November 2014, DeSoto District Judge Robert Burgess, now retired, set another execution date that was also blocked by Brady.

    Sepulvado, now 73, has been on death row since 1993 for the March 8, 1992, death of his stepson, Wesley Allen Mercer, 6. Sepulvado beat the child in the head with a screwdriver then put him into a tub of scalding water.

    Louisiana has more than 70 inmates on death row. The state's last execution was in January 2010, when it carried out a death sentence for Gerald Bordelon, who was convicted of killing his 12-year-old stepdaughter in 2002.

    https://www.ktbs.com/news/judge-s-de...75ec36985.html

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