
State & Federal
Indiana
News & Developments
News
Dec 06, 2022
Midterm Elections: Moratorium Supporters, Reform Prosecutors Post Gains Despite Massive Campaign Efforts to Tie Reformers to Surge in Violent Crime

In a year that featured massive campaign advertising attempting to portray legal reformers as responsible for increases in violent crime, candidates committed to criminal legal reform or who promised to continue statewide moratoria on executions posted key election wins in the 2022 midterm elections. Defying a pre-election narrative forecasting a backlash against progressive prosecutors and conventional wisdom that fear of crime drives political outcomes, reform prosecutors were re-elected to office and gained new footholds in counties across the country.
Read MoreSep 08, 2022
Commentary: Indiana Death Penalty — Expensive, Unreliable, and Withering on the Vine
With no executions in more than a decade and no new death sentences since 2014, Indiana’s costly death penalty has reached a “de facto moratorium,” says Indiana Capital Chronicle editor-in-chief Niki Kelly. “[M]aybe it’s time to be intellectually honest and admit Indiana no longer has the death penalty,” Kelly wrote in a September 2, 2022 commentary.
Read MoreMar 04, 2021
Evenly Split Indiana Supreme Court Affirms Ruling Requiring Release of Execution-Drug Records
An evenly divided Indiana Supreme Court has affirmed a trial court ruling that requires the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) to release records related to the lethal injection drugs Indiana has used in carrying out executions, including the identities of the drug suppliers. The documents were the subject of a public records suit filed by Washington, D.C. lawyer A. Katherine Toomey under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act (APRA).
Read MoreMar 01, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of February 22, 2021
NEWS (2/25/21) — Alabama: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has denied habeas relief for Alabama death-row prisoner Charles Clark, who the trial court had sentenced to death based upon a non-unanimous jury sentencing vote. Clark had argued that the trial court improperly ordered that he be shackled during the trial, without an adequate justification and without placing the reasons for shackling him on the record. His trial counsel had waived the claim by failing to object and Clark argued that this failure constituted ineffective assistance of…
Read MoreAug 17, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of August 10, 2020
NEWS (8/14/20) — Alabama: The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling granting a new trial to death-row prisoner Steven Petric based upon his lawyer’s ineffective representation at trial. Petric had been convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 for a rape and murder in suburban Birmingham two decades earlier.
Read MoreDec 30, 2019
Law Review: New Article Highlights Decline of Judicial Death Sentences
At least 99 men and one woman are on death row in eight U.S. states, condemned to death by judges without the prior authorization of a jury, according to a 2019 study by researchers Michael Radelet and Ben Cohen (pictured) published in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science. Another 18 prisoners sentenced to death since the resumption of capital punishment in the U.S. in the 1970s, the study shows, have been executed after judges disregarded or overrode jury votes in favor of life.
Read MoreDec 11, 2019
Indiana Marks 10 Years Without an Execution
When Indiana executed Matthew Wrinkles on December 11, 2009, it was the twentieth execution carried out since the state reinstated the death penalty in May of 1973. It was also the last execution the state has carried out.
Read MoreAug 07, 2019
Death Penalty Waning in Indiana, With Fewer Capital Prosecutions and No Death Sentences
Following the trends across most of the Midwest, the death penalty is waning in Indiana. Capital prosecutions are down, no jury has voted for death since 2013, and the state is closing in on its tenth consecutive year without an execution. An August 4, 2019 Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette review of the death penalty in the state reports that even high-profile murders that started out as death-penalty cases have recently been resolved with non-capital pleas.
Read MoreJun 17, 2019
Indiana Judge Orders State to Pay $538,000 in Attorney Fees for Stonewalling Release of Lethal-Injection Records
Citing “egregious” misconduct by state prison officials in trying to evade a court order to produce public records concerning its efforts to obtain lethal-injection drugs, an Indiana judge has directed the state’s Department of Correction to pay more than a half million dollars in plaintiffs’ attorney fees. On June 12, 2019, Marion County Circuit Judge Sheryl Lynch (pictured) awarded $538,000 in attorney fees to plaintiffs who were seeking public release of records regarding the drugs Indiana intended to use in future executions. The suit began as a public-records request in…
Read MoreMar 12, 2019
To End Years-Long Delays, Prosecutors in Three States Drop Death Penalty
Prosecutors in separate capital cases in Indiana, Florida, and Texas have dropped pursuit of the death penalty in order to end notoriously lengthy delays and facilitate healing for the victims’ families. On March 8, 2019, St. Joseph County, Indiana prosecutors agreed to a plea deal instead of a third death-penalty trial for Wayne Kubsch (pictured) at the request of the victims’ family. Kubsch was initially sentenced to death in 2000 and received the death penalty a second time in 2005, but both times his triple-murder convictions was overturned. In announcing…
Read MoreDec 06, 2018
Execution Secrecy Takes a Hit in Court Proceedings in Indiana, Missouri
The execution process in Indiana and Missouri may become more transparent as a result of public-access lawsuits filed in the two states. In Indiana, a Marion County trial judge ruled on November 30, 2018 that the state must release pre-2017 records concerning the drugs obtained by the state for executions and the companies that produced them. Three days earlier, the ACLU of Missouri announced the settlement of a lawsuit filed on behalf of investigative journalist Chris McDaniel that ensured that the Missouri Department of Corrections could no longer retaliate against…
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History of the Death Penalty
The death penalty has been present in Indiana for much of the state’s history. Death penalty laws were part of Indiana’s legislation and culture even before Indiana was granted statehood in 1816. Hangings were fairly frequent in the 1800’s, and in some cases public hangings resulted in violent mobs that killed the inmate even before they were hung. This changed with the introduction of the electric chair, which became the primary method of execution in 1913. The death penalty is still used, but executions have been limited in number since reinstatement in 1978, with less than 25 executions.
Timeline
1816 - Indiana is granted statehood. Death penalty laws were apart of Indiana territory-culture and legislature prior to statehood.
1913 - The electric chair becomes the primary method of execution in Indiana. Previously, hanging was the primary method of execution.
1961 - Richard Kiefer is the last person executed prior to a moratorium on the death penalty in 1972.
1973 - The Indiana General Assembly enacts a new death penalty sentencing statute to replace the legislation struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia.
1977 - The Indiana Supreme Court strikes down Indiana’s 1972 death penalty sentencing scheme in response to the court’s decision in Woodson v. North Carolina. Eight men on Indiana’s death row have their sentences set aside as a result.
1985 - William Vandiver’s electrocution execution is botched. After the first administration of 2,300 Volts, Vandiver was still breathing, and Herbert Shaps, Vandiver’s attorney, observed smoke and the smell of burning upon witnessing Vandiver’s execution.
1986 - At sixteen years old, Paula Cooper is the youngest person to be sentenced to death in Indiana.
1995 - Gregory Resnover is the last person to be put to death by electrocution in Indiana.
1995 - The Indiana Legislature passes and the governor signs a law making lethal injection the primary method of execution in Indiana.
1996 - Tommie Smith’s execution is botched in Indiana’s first execution by lethal injection. It took one hour and nine minutes for Smith to be pronounced dead after the execution team struggled to find adequate veins.
2002 - Governor Frank O’Bannon signs SB 426, making Indiana the 16th state to forbid the death penalty for those who were 18 years-of-age at the time of their crime.
2014 - Indiana officials decide to switch to the drug Brevital in their lethal injection process due to a shortage of sodium thiopental.
2017 - The Indiana Court of Appeals voids the state’s lethal-injections protocol, holding that Indiana’s Department of Corrections had failed to comply with state rulemaking procedures when it adopted a never-before-used execution protocol without public notice or comment.
2020 - The first federal execution in 17 years is carried out in Indiana. A 5-4 Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute.
2021 - The Indiana Supreme Court requires the Indiana Department of Corrections to release documents regarding efforts to obtain lethal injection drugs and orders the department to pay more than a half million dollars in attorney fees for its bad faith non-compliance with the state’s public records act.
Famous Cases
Debra Denise Brown, along with Alton Coleman, was convicted for raping, robbing and murdering several victims throughout the summer of 1984. Both Brown and Coleman were sentenced to death in Indiana and Ohio. Brown’s death sentence in Ohio was commuted to life without parole largely due to questions raised about her intellectual functioning and mental ability, as well as the dependency on Coleman to commit the crimes. The same concerns led to her Indiana death sentence being modified to a 140-year sentence. Her partner, Coleman, was executed in 2002.
Notable Exonerations
In 1978, Larry Hicks was sentenced to death for the stabbings of Norton Miller and Stephen Crosby at a neighbor’s party. He was seen earlier threatening the two individuals with a knife. The Playboy Foundation became interested in Hicks’ claim of innocence and granted Hicks money for a retrial after he passed a lie detector test. He was granted a retrial based on ineffective representation at his first trial, and the conviction was overturned once eyewitnesses recanted their testimonies and Hicks provided an alibi. He was released from death row in 1980 and cleared of charges.
Notable Commutations/Clemencies
Arthur Baird’s story is an example of how mental illness can impact death penalty cases. Baird strangled his wife, Nadine Baird, killing her and their unborn child in 1985. The next morning he went on to stab his parents, Arthur and Kathryn Baird. The unusual circumstances surrounding his case, including holding his dead wife for hours in front of a television and feeding his chickens and receiving a haircut before killing his parents, raised questions about Baird’s sanity. Although the Board of Paroles denied his petition for clemency, Governor Mitch Daniels granted Baird clemency on August 9, 2009, the day before his scheduled execution.
Other Interesting Facts
Over time, Indiana has utilized three methods of execution. Until 1913, hanging was the primary method of execution for those sentenced to death. Electrocution was then used until 1995, when lethal injection was first used. Lethal injection is the current primary method of execution in Indiana.
According to Indiana codes, the execution of a death row inmate must take place before sunrise on the execution day.
On July 1, 2002, Indiana shifted away from sentencing in death penalty cases with a judge towards sentencing with a jury. The judge is only to get involved should the jury not unanimously agree on the death sentence.
