Louisiana inmate Christopher Sepulvado died Saturday, just over three weeks before he was scheduled to be put to death for his young stepson’s murder in what would have been one of the first two executions in 15 years as the state shifts its posture on capital punishment.

Sepulvado was Louisiana's oldest prisoner on death row at 81. "The idea that the State was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric,