May 19 (UPI) -- Indiana is set to execute an inmate early Tuesday morning, almost 25 years after he shot and killed Beech Grove Police Department officer William Toney.
Authorities are set to administer the lethal infection to Benjamin Ritchie shortly after midnight Tuesday at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Ind.
Indiana last December executed Joseph Corcoran, the state's first execution in approximately 15 years. Indiana had paused the procedure because of a lack of supply of lethal injection drugs.
Gov. Mike Braun, R-Ind., who took office in January, last week refused to grant Ritchie clemency, following the recommendation of the Indiana Parole Board.
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Ritchie shot and killed Toney in September 2000 after the officer attempted to stop a stolen van. The vehicle crashed, leading to a foot chase through a residential neighborhood in Beech Grove, an Indianapolis suburb with a population of approximately 14,700 people in Marion County, Ind.
Ritchie, who was 20 at the time, had been planning to commit an armed robbery with another man. He was also wanted in Ohio for a separate vehicle theft involving use of a weapon.
Now 45, Ritchie was sentenced to death in October of 2002.
Toney had been an officer for two years before the incident on Sept. 29, 2000. He was killed the day before his 32nd birthday. He was survived by his wife and two young daughters.
Lawyers for Ritchie had argued that his abusive upbringing and a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome diagnosis were grounds for clemency. He has exhausted his appeals process at the state level.
Indiana and Wyoming are the only two to employ the death penalty that do not permit media representatives to witness executions. A collective of journalists lost a court battle to force the state to permit witnesses, arguing the media has a First Amendment right to witness executions.
