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Thread: Christopher Sepulvado - Louisiana Death Row

  1. #101
    Weidmann1939
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    Judge Higinbotham is a Reagan appointee on retired status since August 2006, though he maintains a full case load. Judge Jones is a Clinton pick from 1995. Judge Graves a plumed knight of the current occupant of the white house. On the whole I should think Louisiana's appeal will find favor with Higginbotham and Jones. Though I wouldn't call it a slam dunk.

  2. #102
    punishment1992
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    What is up with the hostility and frankly disrespect that is shown to the president on this forum? You'd think he was a voracious opponent of capital punishment. Um, news flash to everyone - he isn't. May I remind everyone that he publicly condemned the Kennedy v. Louisiana decision, that his Justice Department has sought the death penalty numerous times, and that it is also currently working to revise federal execution protocols so that executions can proceed?

  3. #103
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Louisiana must tell death row inmate the origin of drugs for his execution, appeals court says

    A federal appeals court Thursday refused to block a lower court's order requiring the state to provide a condemned killer with information about the seller and maker of drugs the state uses in executions.

    Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc and Louisiana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain have argued that if they identify how they're getting the drugs, they could have trouble buying more because companies don't want to be known as helping in an execution.

    However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument, noting that U.S. District Judge James Brady's order, as amended earlier this month, only requires that the information be given to death row prisoner Christopher Sepulvado, his defense lawyers, defense team experts and court personnel.

    "The petitioners received much of the relief they sought in their motion for a protective order: the district court directed them to turn over the requested information, but prohibited any party from receiving or sharing the information other than Sepulvado, his counsel, his approved experts, and court personnel," said the opinion issued by a three-judge panel of Patrick Higginbotham, James Dennis and James Graves.

    The state's effort to keep the execution drug information hidden is part of an ongoing federal lawsuit filed by attorneys representing Sepulvado and others on death row.

    The lawsuit seeks more details about Louisiana's execution method, to determine whether it violates a condemned inmate's constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment.

    Louisiana's last execution in 2010 used three chemicals, but sodium thiopental, a key anesthetic in the process, became impossible for the corrections department to obtain. Prison officials then planned to use pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, as the single lethal injection drug, but the corrections department had trouble buying it.

    In January, the state announced a new execution protocol that would use a two-drug combination, following the method carried out for the first time in Ohio. It includes the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone.

    The change came only days before Louisiana planned to execute Sepulvado for the murder of his 6-year-old stepson two decades ago. After objections from Sepulvado's lawyer, Sepulvado's lethal injection was delayed.

    Brady will hold a trial about the constitutionality of the new execution protocol on June 16.

    A spokeswoman for the Corrections Department had not yet seen the ruling and had no comment. A message left with an attorney and death penalty opponent involved in the case was not returned.

    http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/...death_row.html

  4. #104
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    I don't understand what the issue is here.....? If the court orders the information to be kept under seal and anyone who discloses the information will go to jail for contempt, then what is the problem. This issue would be over and several deserving prisoners would be dead by now. Accept it and move on.

  5. #105
    punishment1992
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    ^ Agree. DP states have been their own worst enemy as of late. Stop screwing around with compounding pharmacies and total secrecy laws. Get huge doses of midazolam like Florida has, and there will be no need to worry about all this. Perhaps someone should be telling the DoCs in these states that Florida has been going through their row like a hot knife through butter as of late.

  6. #106
    Weidmann1939
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    Quote Originally Posted by MRBAM View Post
    I don't understand what the issue is here.....? If the court orders the information to be kept under seal and anyone who discloses the information will go to jail for contempt, then what is the problem. This issue would be over and several deserving prisoners would be dead by now. Accept it and move on.
    There have been a number of cases where attorney's or the media have leaked sealed information to the press and or the public.

  7. #107
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Louisiana faced with revealing lethal injection details to inmate

    The Louisiana Department of Corrections does not plan to appeal a U.S. Court decision this week that compels it to reveal to inmates on death row the content and maker of drugs used in lethal injections, a prisons official said on Friday.

    The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Thursday was one in a series in favor of inmates who have sought delays for their execution while they seek information about the contents of lethal injection cocktails and clarity on who would be supplying the drugs.

    The decisions are likely to delay executions across the country as lawyers for inmates in other states launch similar efforts on their behalf in states looking to develop new means of lethal injection after supplies of drugs they have once used have run dry.

    "The state will not appeal the decision," Darryl Campbell, the executive management officer of the Louisiana Department of Corrections, told Reuters. The attorney general's office did not reply to calls seeking comment.

    A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit rejected a petition on Thursday from the prison system to keep information about the drugs and how they would be administered secret from Christopher Sepulvado and other death row inmates.

    Sepulvado, convicted of scalding and beating his 6-year-old stepson to death in 1992, was scheduled to be executed earlier this year but the execution was delayed in February due to questions about the lethal injection.

    Several states have been scrambling to find new suppliers and chemical combinations after drug makers, mostly in Europe, imposed sales bans because they objected to having medications made for other purposes being used in lethal injections.

    The states said they have looked to alter the mix of drugs used for lethal injections and keep the suppliers' identities secret. They have also turned to lightly regulated compounding pharmacies.

    Those pharmacies can mix drugs, often to meet needs not available in prescription medication, the pharmacy compounding accreditation board said.

    But lawyers for death row inmates have argued that keeping information secret was a violation of due process protections in the U.S. Constitution. They also argued that drugs from compounding pharmacies can lack purity and potency and cause undue suffering, in violation of the Constitution.

    So far, courts have decided in their favor, with an Oklahoma judge ruling on Wednesday that the state's secrecy on its lethal injections protocols was unconstitutional.

    On Thursday, a Texas state judge ordered the department of corrections to disclose the name of the supplier of drugs used for two inmates scheduled to be executed in April. The state plans an appeal and has argued it must keep the names secret to protect its suppliers.

    The Texas Supreme Court on Friday temporarily suspended the decision to compel the prison system to reveal the source of the lethal injection drugs to allow judges time to consider the issue, the Houston Chronicle reported.

    http://www.vagazette.com/news/sns-rt...,5561482.story
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #108
    Jan
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Sepulvado's petition for writ of certiorari was DENIED.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
    Case Nos.: (13-70007)
    Decision Date: August 30, 2013
    Rehearing Denied: December 23, 2013
    Discretionary Court
    Decision Date: February 7, 2013

  9. #109
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Article

    Supreme Court denies case on death penalty drugs

    As states scramble to find drugs needed to carry out executions, the Supreme Court won't decide for now whether condemned prisoners deserve to know how they will die.

    The justices denied a hearing Monday to a Louisiana inmate who asked that state officials tell him what lethal-injection drugs they have planned for his demise.

    The case would have put the court squarely at the center of a life-and-death debate over the constitutional rights of even the most depraved killers to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment.

    The decision to stay out of the controversy, at least for now, comes as manufacturers are cutting off supplies of lethal injection drugs because of opposition to the death penalty. That has left prison officials to improvise - sharing drugs, buying them from under-regulated pharmacies or using drug combinations never employed before to put prisoners to death.

    State executioners often turn to compounding pharmacies because of their willingness to custom-mix drugs, but many want their participation kept secret for fear of reprisal. They came under Food and Drug Administration regulation only last fall, after a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy's tainted drugs led to a meningitis outbreak in 2012 that killed 64 people.

    The first four people put to death this year - one each in Florida, Oklahoma, Ohio and Texas - were killed four different ways with various combinations of drugs.

    Enter Christopher Sepulvado, a convicted murderer sentenced to death in Louisiana in 1993. "A condemned inmate has a due process right to timely notice of the protocol that will be used to execute him," his attorney, Thomas Goldstein, argued in his petition seeking Supreme Court review.

    Last year, the state said it would use a massive dose of pentobarbital. Then this year, the state added a second alternative.

    "Louisiana will either execute him with pentobarbital or, alternatively, a combination of midazolam and hydromorphone," the state's attorneys responded. "Thus, he knows what drugs will be used to execute him." The multiple choice didn't satisfy Sepulvado, who brought his appeal to the nation's highest court.

    Against this backdrop, growing numbers of states are ending capital punishment or delaying executions while they scour the globe for a safe supply of drugs.

    In recent years, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York have abolished the death sentence. Governors in Colorado, Oregon and Washington have suspended the punishment. Courts have halted executions in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee over lethal-injection issues.

    And with the media reporting details of prisoners gasping, snorting or crying out during lethal injections, legal challenges are flooding courts. Last month, judges in Oklahoma and Louisiana ruled that those states could not hide the identities of their suppliers and manufacturers.

    Still, the Supreme Court has refused twice this year to halt executions in Texas and Missouri after defense attorneys asked for details about the drugs and suppliers.

    When the high court turned down Tommy Lynn Sells' request last Thursday, his attorneys, Maurie Levin and Jonathan Ross, put the debate in context: "Without transparency about lethal injections, particularly the source and purity of drugs to be used, it is impossible to ensure that executions are humane and constitutional."

    Texas responded by contending that "there is no pharmacy, no drug, and no assurance of quality that would be satisfactory to him."

    The struggle to find lethal-injection drugs comes as executions are on the decline. While 32 states still have capital punishment on their books, the number of executions has dropped from 98 in 1999 to 39 last year.

    http://www.chillicothegazette.com/us...rticle/7307525
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #110
    Weidmann1939
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    Re: SCOTUS denies case on death penalty drugs.

    Denial! Denial! Denial! The anti's and they're lackies in the press and national media are impervious to reality. The anti's have gone down in flames in one case after another concerning lethal drug protocol litigation. Never the less the anti's doggedly persist in fantasizing/hallucinating about losses as sucesses. Spining or twisting defeat after defeat as victory after victory. The historiography never stops.
    Last edited by Weidmann1939; 04-07-2014 at 07:49 PM.

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