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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is asking the Indiana Supreme Court to set an execution date for Benjamin Ritchie, who is on death row for the fatal September 2000 shooting of Beech Grove Police Officer William Toney.
“Most Hoosiers and I expect justice without delay, especially when someone murders a police officer, one of the many, many brave men and women we thank and respect daily,” Rokita said in a news release on Friday. “This convicted cop killer has been on death row far too long — 22 years — and it’s past time for him to pay his debt to society.”
Ritchie is the second death row inmate Rokita has sought an execution date for in recent months — ever since state officials ended their years-long struggle to secure a three-drug mix for executions and opted to use pentobarbital for lethal injections.
Joseph Corcoran, who killed four people in 1997, is now set to die Dec. 18. He would be the first death row inmate executed by the state since 2009.
Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office also weighed in Friday on Ritchie’s potential execution.
“This individual has been on death row since October of 2002 and exhausted all his appeals since his murder of Beech Grove Officer, William Toney, 32, on September 29, 2000,” the governor’s office said in written remarks. “Gov. Holcomb will be fulfilling his gubernatorial duty by following the law and carrying out justice according to the conviction and sentencing of this case by the court.”
Indiana is one of 21 states that have the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
There are currently eight men on Indiana’s death row, including Corcoran and Ritchie. No one has been added to the state’s death row since 2014.
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