NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge on Friday reopened a lawsuit challenging Louisiana’s execution protocol as the state prepares to carry out the death penalty using nitrogen gas in the coming weeks.
For the past 15 years, Louisiana had paused executions due to a lack of political interest and inability to secure lethal injection drugs. But with a nitrogen gas execution protocol finalized this month and Republican Gov. Jeff Landry eager to proceed, the state is scheduled to execute two death row inmates on consecutive days in March.
Christopher Sepulvado, convicted of murdering his 6-year-old stepson, is scheduled to be executed on March 17. Jessie Hoffman, convicted of first-degree murder in 1996, is slated for execution the following day.
Hoffman initially challenged Louisiana’s lethal injection protocol in 2012 on the grounds that the method was cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick dismissed the lawsuit in 2022 because the state had no executions planned. On Friday, she agreed that the new nitrogen gas protocol deserved scrutiny with executions imminent.
“The significant demands of justice, i.e., access to the courts and the protection of constitutional rights in relation to human life, outweigh any interest of finality here,” Dick wrote in her ruling.
Hoffman’s attorney Cecelia Kappel, director of the Loyola University Center for Social Justice, said her team is now requesting a hearing to review the nitrogen gas execution protocol.
“This has always been about examining the state’s execution method in the light of day and when the state wants to speed forward with executions under the shroud of secrecy,” Kappel said.
The country’s first execution using nitrogen gas was carried out last year in Alabama, which has now executed four people using the method.
All of the men executed in Alabama using nitrogen shook or gasped to varying degrees on the gurney as they were being put to death, according to media witnesses including The Associated Press.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she would appeal Dick’s decision to reopen the lawsuit.
“I believe it is egregiously wrong as a matter of law.” Murrill said in a post on X.
St. Tammany Parish District Attorney Collin Sims, who is seeking to execute Hoffman, told The Associated Press in a text message that he respects “any and all judicial review that does not cross the line into legislating from the bench and imposing personal beliefs.”