According to Yahoo news, Ronald Herold Seaton, a death row inmate in a California state prison died on September 2 of natural causes. He was 69 years old.

Seaton spent 26 years in the San Quentin State Prison under a death sentence for burglary, robbery and murder, which were linked to the case of Willis Paul Jones, who died in Riverside County.

In addition to Seaton, 69 other inmates who were sentenced to death have died due to natural causes, and 24 others have taken their own lives. Seven hundred forty seven more inmates are detained at the Marin County state prison, where they wait for their sentences to be served.

Although the death penalty is lawful in the state of California, there are a number of issues which call into question the measures with which lethal injection is administered. Additionally, there are political conflicts in the state which results in an endless waiting game for inmates.

Support of the death penalty has decreased in many different states, including California. The Innocence Projects, which have paved the way for the acquittal of some prisoners, as well as the works of legal activists, have contributed to this decline.

A Field Poll conducted in 2014 revealed that support of the death penalty in California has dropped to its lowest rate in 50 years. Furthermore, the survey showed that the voters who supported the capital punishment declined from 68 percent in 2011 to 54 percent in 2014.

In 2014, one federal judge claimed that the long wait endured by many prisoners could be unconstitutional and be considered cruel and unusual punishment, such as Ernest Dewayne Jones, who has been in the death row since 1995.

The San Quentin state prison is currently dealing with an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease, with six inmates diagnosed and 95 more under observation. Legionnaire’s disease is a severe type of pneumonia; but authorities report that there were no signs that it was Seaton’s cause of death.