Louisiana will not con­duct any exe­cu­tions in 2016 or 2017 as a result of a new court order issued with the con­sent of the par­ties in fed­er­al pro­ceed­ings chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Louisiana’s lethal injec­tion process. At the request of the Louisiana Attorney General, a fed­er­al judge has delayed pro­ceed­ings on the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col for an addi­tion­al 18 months, mak­ing January 2018 the ear­li­est date the state could resume exe­cu­tions. Attorney General Jeff Landry asked for the exten­sion because the facts of the case are in a ​“flu­id state” and it would be ​“a waste of resources and time to lit­i­gate this mat­ter at present time.” The request marked the third time in two years that the state has asked to delay the tri­al. In June 2015, after the state’s exe­cu­tion drugs had expired, its lawyers told the court that Louisiana lacked the drugs nec­es­sary to car­ry out exe­cu­tions. In February, the Louisiana Department of Corrections indi­cat­ed that the state still did not have the drugs need­ed to con­duct an exe­cu­tion. Previously, in 2013, the state had con­sid­ered pur­chas­ing exe­cu­tion drugs from a Tulsa, Oklahoma, com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy that was not licensed to pro­vide drugs to any phar­ma­cy in Louisiana, mak­ing any pur­chase of drugs from that com­pa­ny by the Louisiana State Penitentiary Pharmacy ille­gal under state law. That com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy, which secret­ly sold exe­cu­tion drugs to Missouri dur­ing the same peri­od, was impli­cat­ed in near­ly 2,000 vio­la­tions of Oklahoma phar­ma­cy reg­u­la­tions. The state lat­er obtained one of the exe­cu­tion drugs it need­ed from a hos­pi­tal in Lake Charles, mis­rep­re­sent­ing to the hos­pi­tal that it need­ed the drugs for med­ical pur­pos­es. Christopher Sepulvado, one of the two inmates named in the chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Louisiana’s exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dure, was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in 2014. Louisiana’s pro­to­col allows for either a one-drug exe­cu­tion using pen­to­bar­bi­tal, or a two-drug exe­cu­tion using mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone. The state does not have the drugs nec­es­sary for either option, accord­ing to a spokesper­son for the Depatment of Corrections. Louisiana’s last exe­cu­tion was in 2010.

(M. Kunzelman, ​“State asks to rule out next Louisiana exe­cu­tion before 2018,” Associated Press, May 31, 2016; D. Hasselle, ​“Executions in Louisiana on hold until at least January 2018,” The Lens, June 1, 2016; D. Hasselle, ​“State has explored ille­gal­ly obtain­ing drug for upcom­ing exe­cu­tion,” The Lens, Jan. 25, 2014.) See Lethal Injection.

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