21 May 2025 :

May 20, 2025 - Indiana. Benjamin Ritchie, 45, White, was executed on May 20

Benjamin Ritchie had been sentenced to death in 2002 (see HoC 10/08/2002 and 17/10/2002) in Marion County for the 29 September 2000 killing of policeman William Toney, 31, who chased him on foot after Ritchie abandoned a van he had stolen. Ritchie was 20 years old at the time, but was on parole for a previous theft.

Ritchie was executed by lethal injection at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The process started shortly after midnight and Ritchie was pronounced dead at 12:46 a.m.

Ritchie expressed love, support and peace for his friends and family, according to witnesses.

Under state law, he was allowed five witnesses at his execution, which included his attorney Steve Schutte, who told reporters he had a limited view of the process.

“I couldn’t see his face. He was lying flat by that time,” Schutte said. “He sat up, twitched, laid back down.”

Dozens of people, both anti-death penalty advocates and supporters of Toney, stood outside the prison until early Tuesday.

Among 27 states with death penalty laws, Indiana is one of two that bars media witnesses. The other, Wyoming, has conducted one execution in the last half-century.

The Associated Press and other media organizations filed a federal lawsuit in Indiana seeking media access, but a federal judge denied a preliminary injunction last week that would have allowed journalists to witness Ritchie’s execution and future ones. The judge found that barring the news media doesn’t violate the First Amendment nor does it single out the news media for unequal treatment.

Ritchie’s attorneys have fought the death sentence, arguing his legal counsel at trial was ineffective because his lawyers failed to fully investigate and present evidence on his fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and childhood lead exposure.

He was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2005.

Disability rights advocates argued that Ritchie’s brain damage should have excluded him from the death penalty.

Ritchie becomes the 1st prisoner executed this year in Indiana, the 22nd since Indiana resumed executions in 1981, the 17th inmate put to death this year in the USA, and the n° 1,624 overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/20/us/indiana-benjamin-ritchie-execution