On February 7, fed­er­al District Court Judge James Brady stayed the exe­cu­tion of Christopher Sepulvado in Louisiana because the state failed to pro­vide details about its new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. ​“Sepulvado has been try­ing to deter­mine what the pro­to­col is for years,” Judge Brady wrote, ​“and the State will not pro­vide this infor­ma­tion. The intran­si­gence of the State Defendants in fail­ing to pro­duce the pro­to­col requires the Court to issue this order.” Sepulvado was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on Feb. 13, the first non-con­sen­su­al exe­cu­tion in the state in over 10 years. The judge said, ​“There is no way that [Sepulvado] could ade­quate­ly, mean­ing­ful­ly bring an Eighth Amendment chal­lenge if he does not know how the pro­to­col oper­ates.” Louisiana had pre­vi­ous­ly used a 3‑drug pro­to­col, but just recent­ly said it planned to use 1 drug, pen­to­bar­bi­tal. However, it offered no details about how the drug was pur­chased, what train­ing was pro­vid­ed to prison staff, or who would car­ry out the exe­cu­tion. The state lat­er indi­cat­ed it obtained the drug from Lundbeck, Inc.

Sepulvado was sen­tened to death for killing his step­son in 1992.

(J. Simerman, ​“Federal judge halts exe­cu­tion sched­uled for next week,” Times-Picayune; M. Deslate, ​“Federal judge delays Louisiana’s plan to exe­cute man next week; con­vict­ed of killing step­son,” The Republic (Associated Press); February 7, 2013). See Lethal Injection and Upcoming Executions.

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