Michigan City, Ind. – A Indiana man The condemned in the murder of a 2000 police officer will receive a lethal injection on the early Tuesday in the second execution of the State in 15 years.
Benjamin Ritchie, 45, has been in the death corridor for more than 20 years after being convicted of the fatal shooting of the Beech Grove police officer, Bill Toney, during a feet chase.
Unless there is a last -minute judicial action, Ritchie is scheduled to be executed “before dawn time” in Indiana state prison in the city of Michigan, according to state officials.
Indiana resumed Executives In December after a parenthesis of years due to the shortage of lethal injection drugs throughout the country. Prison officials provided photos of the execution chamber before Execution of Joseph CorcoranShowing a space that looks like a little operating room with a stretcher, fluorescent lighting, a floor drain and an adjacent observation room. They have offered some other details about the process, including the time in which executions take place.
Among 27 states with laws of death penalty, Indiana is one of the two which prohibits media witnesses. The other, Wyoming, has made an execution in the last half century. Associated Press and other media organizations have filed a federal demand In Indiana looking for access to the media.
The execution of Tuesday in Indiana is between 12 scheduled in eight states this year. The execution of Ritchie and two others in Texas and Tennessee will take place this week.
Ritchie was 20 when he and others stole a truck in Beech Grove, near Indianapolis. Then he shot Toney four shots during a feet persecution, killing him.
At that time, Ritchie was on probation for a robo sentence of 1998.
Toney, 31, had worked in the Beech Grove police department for two years. He was the first officer of the Police Department of approximately 30 officers to be killed by shooting in the fulfillment of duty. The community of 14,000 people cried the married father of two people as a neighboring person who appeared to help others.
When Toney died, “all those involved, including Bill, we had something stolen from them that will never return,” police deputy director Tom Hurrle said, who worked with him.
Family members spoke at a clemency audience last week, urging the execution to advance.
“It’s time. We are all tired,” said Dee Dee Horen, who was Toney’s wife. “It’s time for this chapter for my story, our story, to be closed. It’s time to remember Bill, remember Bill’s life, and not his death.”
Ritchie’s lawyers have fought against the death penalty judgment, arguing that their legal advisor was ineffective because their lawyers did not investigate and presented completely evidence about their fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and exposure to children’s lead.
The current defense lawyers say that Ritchie suffered “severe brain damage” because his mother abused alcohol and drugs during pregnancy and has fought with decision making. He was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2005.
“He has finally come to have some coping skills. He is a different man,” said defense lawyer Steven Schutte.
Republican governor Mike Braun rejected Ritchie Clemence offer last week as recommended by the probation Board. Braun did not explain his decision, but the members of the Board said that the case of Ritchie did not meet the bar for traveling a sentence and cited a dozen violations during Ritchie’s time in prison, including the threat of others with violence.
Indiana’s Supreme Court denied a request to stop the execution, but two judges noticed that the jury did not receive precise information about Ritchie’s brain damage.
Ritchie’s lawyers are challenging that decision in the Federal Court and have also filed a petition before the United States Supreme Court.
Disability rights defenders say that Ritchie’s brain damage should exclude it from the death penalty.
The “Ritchie’s ability to fully appreciate the ostics of his behavior” was “affected at the time of his crime,” said Dr. Megan Carter, who also testified to the Board of Procedure, in a statement.
The lawyers say that Ritchie has changed during their more than two decades after bars and has been remorse.
In court when I was young, Ritchie smiled at Horen and laughed when the verdict was read.
He told a probation board that he deeply regrets his actions, especially how he acted with Toney’s widow.
“I would like to be able to return to day in court, because that man’s wife deserved to say everything he needed to tell me, and that punk boy should have kept his mouth closed and let him say whatever he needed to say,” Ritchie said. “That was his right. That was the right of his family.”
Ritchie has spent his last days receiving visits from friends and family. According to state law, up to five witnesses are allowed in its execution, which will include lawyers and friends.
“I have ruined my life and the lives of other people, and I’m very sorry that night,” he told the Board of Probation at the beginning of this month. “You can’t recover what you did.”
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Tareen reported from Chicago. Associated Press’s writer John O’Connor contributed from Springfield, Illinois.
