Indiana’s Scheduled Third Execution After 15-year Pause Raises Cost and Secrecy Concerns

Indiana is set to exe­cute Roy Lee Ward on October 10, 2025, despite ongo­ing con­cerns about the cost of lethal injec­tion and the lack of trans­paren­cy sur­round­ing the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols in the wake of an sus­pect­ed botched exe­cu­tion ear­li­er this year. Mr. Ward will be the third indi­vid­ual exe­cut­ed after a 15-year pause in exe­cu­tions in Indiana. In July 2025, Governor Mike Braun said he would not renew the state’s sup­ply of lethal injec­tion drugs, not­ing the last pur­chase, made in December 2024, had expired, and cit­ing the $300,000 price tag per exe­cu­tion for pentobarbital.

While the state shared its exe­cu­tion pro­to­col with attor­neys for Mr. Ward in response to their legal chal­lenge to the state’s use of lethal injec­tion, it has not made the pro­to­col pub­lic, nor has it dis­closed infor­ma­tion about drug sourc­ing. Gov. Braun and his office have reject­ed repeat­ed requests to dis­close the costs of the most recent batch of drugs pur­chased for Mr. Ward’s exe­cu­tion. Indiana also bars media access to exe­cu­tions, pre­vent­ing inde­pen­dent observers from wit­ness­ing the state’s actions and ensur­ing government accountability.

By enact­ing secre­cy laws and not dis­clos­ing exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, many states seek to hide impor­tant details about exe­cu­tion meth­ods, per­son­nel, and the prove­nance of drugs used in lethal injec­tion. This lack of trans­paren­cy, often explic­it in laws and pro­to­cols, makes it impos­si­ble to know whether con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment are respect­ed. Indiana is one of 17 active death penal­ty states that do not make exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols avail­able on their pub­lic web­sites. And, unlike most states that have lethal injec­tion as a pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion, Indiana also does not explic­it­ly dis­close what drug com­bi­na­tions it uses, although pub­lic state­ments sug­gest the state fol­lows a sin­gle drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal pro­to­col. The ban on press access to exe­cu­tions fur­ther con­ceals the state’s deci­sions and actions. 

Costs are an ongo­ing issue in Indiana and for Gov. Braun, who made reign­ing in state expen­di­tures a sig­na­ture issue upon his elec­tion. Immediately after tak­ing office, he con­duct­ed an audit of his predecessor’s spend­ing in the cause of increas­ing trans­paren­cy and gov­ern­ment over­sight. Discussing the 127-page audit report, Gov. Braun stat­ed, ​“When ques­tions are raised about how tax­pay­er dol­lars are being used, we take that seri­ous­ly. That’s why we ordered a full foren­sic audit — no short­cuts, no pol­i­tics.” According to report­ing by the Indiana Capital Chronicle, over the past two years, the state has spent $1.175 mil­lion on exe­cu­tion drugs; $600,000 of which was spent on two dos­es of pen­to­bar­bi­tal that expired some­time in the first half of this year. 

Gov. Braun has also expressed con­cern about the shelf life of the drugs used in lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions, not­ing the state found itself ​“in a pick­le” over the state’s now-expired December 2024 pen­to­bar­bi­tal drugs. Attorneys for Mr. Ward have flagged poten­tial prob­lems with the way that Indiana stores its lethal injec­tion drugs, cit­ing to Indiana Department of Correction logs from January and February of this year where stor­age tem­per­a­ture con­di­tions were out­side the rec­om­mend­ed range for sev­er­al days in a row, report­ed­ly at times as low as 62 F. Mr. Ward’s attor­ney Joanna Green said those fluc­tu­a­tions ​“may have affect­ed the drugs used” in last exe­cu­tion in the state. 

The lack of press access to exe­cu­tions is a mat­ter of seri­ous con­tention in Indiana. Prior to Benjamin Ritchie’s exe­cu­tion in May, a coali­tion of five media out­lets chal­lenged Indiana’s pol­i­cy bar­ring jour­nal­ists from wit­ness­ing exe­cu­tions in court. In the fil­ing, they said the ​“lack of press access leaves the pub­lic with an incom­plete under­stand­ing of the pro­ceed­ings,” recount­ing how often botched exe­cu­tions only come to light because of the pres­ence of jour­nal­ists. In a state­ment about the fil­ing, Kris Cundiff, an attor­ney for the media out­lets, said ​“We are bring­ing this law­suit on behalf of mem­bers of the news media who have a duty to hold the gov­ern­ment account­able when it car­ries out its ulti­mate pun­ish­ment in the public’s name… We’re ask­ing the court to imme­di­ate­ly strike down this law so the news media can pro­vide the pub­lic with the impar­tial, com­plete accounts of exe­cu­tions that it deserves.” 

Mr. Ward has exhaust­ed his appeals and was denied clemen­cy, and he has also dropped his chal­lenge to Indiana’s use of lethal injec­tion. Mr. Ward’s attor­ney Green not­ed, ​“After dis­cov­ery, the par­ties came to an agree­ment that ensures com­pli­ance with the pro­to­col and ensures, to the extent pos­si­ble, Mr. Ward’s exe­cu­tion is not prob­lem­at­ic giv­en what hap­pened in Mr. Ritchie’s exe­cu­tion.” But the Indiana DOC also denied Mr. Ward’s requests to mod­i­fy the exe­cu­tion cham­ber, mean­ing, his lawyer says, that ​“wit­ness­es can­not hear Roy and Roy can­not see his witnesses.”