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Thread: Christopher Sepulvado - Louisiana Death Row

  1. #11
    State and federal appeals exhausted?

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Condemned Louisiana man asks state high court to halt Feb. 13 execution

    A Shreveport-area man who has a Feb. 13 date for the death chamber asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to hear why his execution should be stayed. Lawyers for Christopher Sepulvado argued that he should be allowed to challenge the drug combination that the state would use to kill him - as soon as they learn what it is.

    They claim a worldwide shortage of sodium pentathol, the first drug in the traditional three-drug mix for lethal injection, has thrown the execution procedure in Louisiana into a constitutional haze.

    Just what the state protocol is for lethal injection is unclear. Pam Laborde, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said she couldn't comment, citing pending federal litigation.

    Sepulvado, 69, has remained on death row for nearly two decades, convicted in DeSoto Parish for beating and fatally scalding his stepson, 6-year-old Wesley Allen Mercer, at home in Mansfield in 1992. According to court records, the boy's scalp had separated from his skull from the hemorrhaging and bruising.

    Sepulvado admitted stabbing the boy with a screwdriver but claimed the scalding was a bathtub accident.

    He would be the first condemned man executed in Louisiana since 2010, when Gerald Bordelon of Livingston Parish waived his appeal. The last person executed involuntarily in the state was Leslie Martin in 2002, for the rape and murder of a college student in St. Charles.

    In most states, the traditional lethal injection procedure has included sodium pentathol, which is intended to render the subject unconscious; pancurium bromide, which is meant to cause paralysis; and potassium chloride, a drug akin to road salt that causes cardiac arrest.

    Numerous states have challenged the combo on various grounds - among them, that in certain cases the condemned inmate was left conscious, unmoving and in excruciating pain.

    District Court Judge Robert Burgess on Dec. 21 denied a stay of execution for Sepulvado,

    His lawyers contend that the state plans to kill him "in a secret procedure that it will not disclose."

    The state denied his request for information on the procedure, citing security concerns, according to the legal filing. An appeals court panel in Baton Rouge rejected a different death row inmate's claim that the state needed to adopt lethal injection guidelines under the Louisiana Administrative Procedure Act.

    Originally, the state pulled Sepulvado into a 2009 legal challenge to the execution method, but according to the appeal, it now wants to sever him from the case.

    One of Sepulvado's attorneys, A.M. Stroud III, said allowing that would" simply be Kafkaesque."

    District Court Judge Robert Burgess decided last month that he has no authority to review the constitutionality of the state's procedure, but granted a stay while the Supreme Court considers it.

    Burgess called the execution date after the resolution of a different case appeared to resolve lethal injection litigation. Sepulvado's attorneys now argue that the method has since changed because of federal restrictions on sodium pentathol.

    His attorneys claim Sepulvado's due process rights are being violated, either because the state has no execution protocol or because it won't reveal it.

    Louisiana switched from electrocution to lethal injection in 1990. There are now a little more than 80 inmates on death row at Angola. Nationally, both death sentences and the number of people on death row continued to decline last year.

    http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/...an_asks_s.html
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  3. #13
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On January 15, 2012, Sepulvado filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/lou...v00099/127732/

  4. #14
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Preparations under way for Christopher Sepulvado execution

    Initial preparations are under way for next month’s execution of a DeSoto Parish man.

    The Louisiana Department of Corrections this week sent forms to area media, notifying them of the process to be considered as witnesses to the execution of convicted child killer Christopher Sepulvado.

    The Associated Press is permitted one of three media slots, with the remaining two going to a reporter from the parish where the crime was committed and another representing all other news agencies.

    Sepulvado, 69, who killed his stepson Wesley Allen Mercer, 6, in March 1992, is scheduled to die by lethal injection between the hours of 6 and 9 p.m. Feb. 13.

    But his attorneys have not given up trying to block Sepulvado’s date with death. A writ seeking reversal of DeSoto District Judge Robert Burgess’ order in December lifting a stay of execution that had been in place since 2008 is pending consideration by the Louisiana Supreme Court. It was filed by attorney Marty Stroud.
    Sepulvado’s case has been the subject of prolonged state and federal appeals.

    A DeSoto Parish jury imposed the death sentence in 1993 after listening to days of emotional testimony about Allen’s death. Authorities testified that the preschooler endured what was described as torture on the days leading to the end of his short life.

    Allen was denied food and forced to sleep on a trunk. His death was facilitated by a blow to the head from a screwdriver, rendering him unconscious. Sepulvado then immersed Allen in a bathtub of scalding water that caused third-degree burns and sloughed off the skin below a visible demarcation line along his body. Sepulvado and Allen’s mother, Yvonne Mercer, waited three hours before seeking medical treatment. But by then, Allen had died.

    State law dictates the number of witnesses to an execution. Specified in the statute are the warden or someone selected by him, the West Feliciana coroner or his deputy, a physician, a person selected by the warden to administer the lethal injection, a priest or minister and five to seven “other witnesses.”

    Media fall in the “other” category, as do up to two members of the victim’s family.

    The remaining witnesses are decided by the Department of Corrections.

    Media will be notified by Feb. 1 as to whom will serve as actual witnesses and who will serve in a pool of reporters. At least 10 days before the execution, DOC must notify the victim’s family, and they in turn have to let the office know of their intent to attend. If more than two want to attend, the DOC secretary has to make the decision who is authorized.

    http://www.shreveporttimes.com/artic...vado-execution
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  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Killer’s attorney sues state as execution date nears

    Attorneys for a DeSoto Parish man scheduled to be executed Feb. 13 for fatally scalding his 6-year-old stepson in 1992 are asking a Baton Rouge court to order state corrections officials to turn over records relating to Louisiana’s lethal injection procedures and protocols.

    The New Orleans-based Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana, which represents Christopher Sepulvado, also is seeking a preliminary injunction until the requested records are produced and all litigation challenging lethal injection has been resolved or terminated.

    “It would probably have that effect,” CPCPL director Gary Clements said Thursday when asked in a telephone interview if the request for an injunction is essentially a request for a stay of execution.

    In a lawsuit Clements filed Tuesday at the 19th Judicial District Court, he says the Louisiana Supreme Court is currently considering lethal injection litigation that involves Sepulvado and all other Louisiana death-row inmates.

    “The State brought Mr. Sepulvado into ongoing lethal injection litigation, but it now seeks to execute him by the very method that is at issue in pending litigation of which he is a party,” CPCPL attorney Kathleen Kelly argues in the suit.

    Clements contends in his suit that the Department of Public Safety and Corrections arbitrarily denied him access to a large majority of the records he requested Dec. 18, including records reflecting the country and company of origin for each of the lethal injection drugs currently in the department’s possession.

    Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections spokeswoman Pam Laborde said Thursday the department had not been served with the suit filed earlier in the week.

    “Therefore we will reserve comment at this time,” she said.

    The pending litigation Clements refers to in his suit is a lawsuit that death-row inmate Nathaniel Code, of Shreveport, filed against the department in 2009 in Baton Rouge. Code’s suit claims the state failed to follow proper administrative procedures before putting its lethal injection procedure in place.

    In 2010, the department essentially countersued every Louisiana death-row inmate, asking for a judicial declaration that the state’s lethal injection rules and regulations meet statutory and constitutional muster.

    Attorneys for many of the state’s death-row inmates argued that the rules governing executions in Louisiana have changed numerous times over the past two decades and could change in the future.

    In 2011, state District Judge Mike Caldwell denied the department’s request that he validate Louisiana’s lethal injection procedure for future executions. The judge said it would be premature to do so because the lone U.S. manufacturer of a key drug used by the state has ended its production.

    The department argued that its lethal injection protocols, either in their current form or as amended in the future, do not constitute rules and, therefore, the department did not and does not have to follow the rule-making procedures set out by the Louisiana Administrative Procedure Act.

    In October, the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge rejected Code’s contention that the state’s lethal injection guidelines are invalid because they were not adopted in compliance with the LAPA. The court concluded that the department’s internal rules for implementing a death sentence are not subject to the LAPA.

    Sepulvado was convicted in 1993 of the first-degree murder of Wesley Alan Mercer. Three days after Sepulvado married Wesley’s mother, the boy was hit in the head with a screwdriver handle until he lost consciousness, then thrown into a tub of scalding water, according to reports.

    His mother, Yvonne Sepulvado, is serving a 21-year sentence for manslaughter. Jurors acquitted her of murder.

    Clements’ suit has been assigned to state District Judge William Morvant.

    http://theadvocate.com/home/4942226-...-sues-state-as
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  6. #16
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On January 22, 2013, Sepulvado filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca5/13-70004/

  7. #17
    bem17356
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    If as is not uncommon with some Death Row inmates Mr. Sepulvado has made a conscience choice/decision. That each and every year month, week, day, hour and minute of extended life he can wring out of the system by means of successive stays procured by his Attorney's at the taxpayers expense. Then it is an evil that we as Citizens must suffer so long as the evil is sufferable. If however on the other hand as I strongly suspect. This is Mr. Sepulvado Attorney's holding out false hope for certain purposes. Then we need to ask where are all those feckless bleeding heart Liberals emoting hysterically about the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
    Last edited by bem17356; 01-26-2013 at 07:27 AM.

  8. #18
    Junior Member Stranger Blue Umbrella's Avatar
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    When I first came to this site last year, I admitted right up front that I supported the death penalty, but due to personal religious convictions, I sometimes struggled with that support. It is precisely cases like this one here that have convinced me to quit struggling with my decision to support CP. Every breath this scumbag takes is one more than he should have been allowed to. I REALLY hope this goes through...
    “Realists do not fear the results of their study.” -Fyodor Dostoevsky

  9. #19
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Shep3's Avatar
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    Just read the LASC rejected his appeal today.

  10. #20
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    2 death penalty case appeals rejected

    Appeals of two death penalty cases have been rejected, the Louisiana Supreme Court announced Friday.

    An attorney for one of the convicted murderers had argued that a lack of information about the state’s lethal injection formula poses risk of paralyzing, mute and agonizing executions for death row inmates. The same attorney argued for a second inmate that state officials did not follow proper administrative procedures when they adopted lethal injection for executions in Louisiana years ago.

    Supreme Court justices did not issue a written opinion in either case.

    Gary P. Clements, attorney for condemned killer Christopher Sepulvado, already had filed a motion with U.S. District Judge James J. Brady in Baton Rouge to merge Sepulvado’s complaint over the risk of excruciating pain from lethal injections with that of death row inmate Jessie Hoffman.

    Clements said late Friday that Brady had not yet ruled on the request by Sepulvado to join Hoffman’s suit. Sepulvado is scheduled for execution on Feb. 13.

    Sepulvado, 68, of DeSoto Parish, was convicted in 1993 for the 1992 murder of his 6-year-old stepson, Wesley Allen Mercer. The trial jury decided that Sepulvado had beaten the boy unconscious with the handle of a screwdriver, then immersed him in scalding bath water.

    In rejecting an earlier appeal of Sepulvado’s conviction, members of the Louisiana Supreme Court noted the child had third-degree burns over 58 percent of his body and his “scalp had separated from his skull due to hemorrhaging and bruising.”

    Clements, director of the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana, also represents Nathaniel Code, 56, of Shreveport. Code’s appeal was based on an alleged failure by state officials to follow required administrative procedures when they originally approved lethal injection for executions.

    Asked whether Code will ask to join Hoffman’s civil suit in Brady’s federal court, Clements said: “I really haven’t made a decision on that yet. We will see what happens.”

    Code does not yet have a scheduled execution date, Clements said.

    Code was convicted in 1990 for the 1985 bathtub drowning of 34-year-old Vivian Chaney; the stabbing and slashing death of Chaney’s 17-year-old daughter, Carlitha; and the shooting deaths of Chaney’s brother, Jerry Culbert, and her boyfriend, Billy Joe Harris.

    The prosecution’s opening statement in Code’s trial is on the website of state District Judge Scott J. Crichton, of Shreveport, who was the lead prosecutor in that case.

    Crichton can be heard telling jurors in his statement that Code also was implicated in the 1984 slashing and stabbing death of another Shreveport woman, as well as three other Caddo Parish residents in 1987.

    Hoffman, like Code, does not have an execution date set yet. The 34-year-old former New Orleans resident is represented by Houston attorney Michael D. Rubenstein and New Orleans attorney Cecelia Trenticosta Kappel, of The Promise of Justice Initiative.

    Rubenstein and Kappel told Brady last month that Louisiana prison officials refuse to divulge whether they have a sufficient supply of sodium thiopental to ensure that death row inmates injected with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride will not suffer a protracted death that is silent, savage and extremely painful.

    Hoffman was convicted in St. Tammany Parish in 1998 for the kidnap, robbery, rape and murder of 28-year-old advertising executive Mary “Molly” Elliot two years earlier.

    Clements agreed Friday with Rubenstein and Kappel’s argument as to the possibility that death row inmates may be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment if state officials do not answer questions about the supply of sodium thiopental and the chemical formula that will be used in the death chamber for future executions.

    “Nobody can get their hands on it anymore,” Clements said of sodium thiopental. “And we don’t know what they (state prison officials) are doing about that, because they won’t tell us.”

    http://theadvocate.com/home/5012730-...y-case-appeals
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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