The death penalty in Indiana applies only to murder convictions where the prosecution proves at least one statutory aggravating circumstance, and sentences are carried out by lethal injection at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The state resumed executions in December 2024 after a nearly 15-year pause, putting three men to death between then and October 2025. Five people remain on Indiana’s death row.
What Makes a Murder a Capital Case
A capital case begins with a murder charge. Under Indiana’s murder statute, a person commits murder by knowingly or intentionally killing another person, by killing someone during the commission of certain felonies such as arson, burglary, kidnapping, rape, robbery, or drug dealing, or by knowingly killing a fetus at any stage of development.1Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-42-1-1 – Murder
Murder by itself does not expose a defendant to execution. The prosecutor has to file a separate notice alleging at least one aggravating circumstance from the list in Indiana’s death penalty sentencing statute, and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-50-2-9 – Death Penalty Sentencing Procedure One is enough, though prosecutors often allege several.
The aggravators sort into a handful of groups:
- Murder committed during another serious felony, including arson, burglary, child molesting, kidnapping, rape, robbery, criminal confinement, drug dealing, or gang activity.
- Particular methods of killing: using an explosive, lying in wait, dismembering the victim, or burning, mutilating, or torturing the victim while alive.
- Murder for hire, whether the defendant did the hiring or the killing.
- The victim’s identity: a law enforcement officer, corrections employee, probation or parole officer, firefighter, or judge acting in an official capacity; a child under twelve; a pregnant woman; or a witness killed to prevent testimony.
- Criminal history, including a prior murder conviction, another murder committed at any time even without a conviction, or being in state or county custody, on probation, or on parole when the killing occurred.
- Firing a gun into an occupied home or shooting from a vehicle.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-50-2-9 – Death Penalty Sentencing Procedure
How the Sentence Gets Decided
If the jury convicts of murder and finds at least one aggravator proven, the same jury hears a separate penalty phase to choose between death and life without parole. The defense puts on mitigating evidence. The statute lists specific mitigators, including no significant criminal history, extreme mental or emotional disturbance, a minor role as an accomplice, substantial impairment from mental illness or intoxication, and being under eighteen at the time of the offense. It also includes a catch-all for any other circumstance the jury considers relevant, which lets the defense raise anything that humanizes the defendant: childhood abuse, brain injury, military service, remorse.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-50-2-9 – Death Penalty Sentencing Procedure
The jury can recommend death only if it finds the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating ones beyond a reasonable doubt. If it reaches a recommendation, the judge must impose that sentence. If it deadlocks, the judge sentences alone.
Who Cannot Be Sentenced to Death
Two categories of defendants are off limits. A person must have been at least eighteen at the time of the murder to face execution; anyone sixteen or seventeen at the time can receive life without parole but not death.3Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-50-2-3 – Murder
A defendant with an intellectual disability also cannot be sentenced to death. Indiana defines that as significantly below-average intellectual functioning combined with substantial impairment in adaptive behavior, both documented before the person turned twenty-two.4Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-36-9-2 – Individual With an Intellectual Disability When a court-ordered evaluation confirms the disability before trial, the death penalty portion of the charges must be dismissed, and the maximum possible sentence becomes life without parole.5Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-36-9-6
Appeals, Post-Conviction Review, and Clemency
Every death sentence in Indiana triggers an automatic review by the Indiana Supreme Court, which must give the case priority over everything else on its docket. The court looks at constitutional violations, jurisdiction, and whether the sentence exceeded legal limits. If the review cannot be finished before the scheduled execution date, the court stays the execution and sets a new date.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-50-2-9 – Death Penalty Sentencing Procedure
After the direct appeal, a condemned person can file for post-conviction relief in state court. That is a separate proceeding from the trial appeal, and it reaches issues that may not appear in the trial record, such as ineffective legal representation, newly discovered evidence, or constitutional violations.6Indiana Rules of Court. Indiana Rules for Post-Conviction Remedies A second round of post-conviction review faces higher procedural hurdles as a successive petition.
Once state remedies are exhausted, the inmate can file a federal habeas corpus petition. It must generally be filed within one year of the state conviction becoming final, with limited exceptions for newly recognized constitutional rights or newly discovered facts.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2254 Federal habeas is typically the last stop before execution can go forward.
Clemency comes last and only after an execution date is set with no stay in place. If a stay issues, the process halts until a new date is scheduled and a new petition filed.8Cornell Law Institute. Indiana Code 220 IAC 1.1-4-1 – Clemency Eligibility Requirements The Indiana Parole Board, a five-member body appointed by the governor, holds a hearing and sends a non-binding recommendation.9Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 11-9-1-1 – Parole Board Establishment, Membership The governor has sole constitutional authority to grant a reprieve, commutation, or pardon for any offense other than treason or impeachment, meaning a death sentence can be commuted to life without parole regardless of what the board recommends. None of the three people executed in 2024 and 2025 received clemency.
How Executions Are Carried Out
Indiana executes by lethal injection. The statute requires death by intravenous injection of a lethal substance in a quantity sufficient to cause death, and deliberately avoids naming a specific drug.10Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 35-38-6-1 – Punishment of Death In the 2024 and 2025 executions, the state used pentobarbital, a sedative that induces unconsciousness and then cardiac arrest.
The preparation of execution drugs falls outside the oversight of the state’s pharmacy board, health department, and other licensing agencies. Indiana law provides that compounding a lethal substance for an execution is not the practice of pharmacy, and it shields the identities of everyone involved in the process, including drug suppliers. Defense attorneys and transparency advocates have criticized the secrecy, particularly around whether compounded pentobarbital meets pharmaceutical quality standards.
Only a limited group may be in the execution chamber: the warden, correctional staff needed for the procedure, two physicians, two spiritual advisors, and up to five friends or relatives of the condemned person. Victims’ family members may attend. Reporters are not permitted inside the chamber but can observe from a separate viewing area. After the drugs are administered, a physician or county coroner confirms the absence of a pulse and pronounces death.
Recent Executions and Current Death Row
The 15-year pause ended in December 2024 with the execution of Joseph Corcoran for the 1997 killings of four men in Fort Wayne. Benjamin Ritchie was executed in May 2025 for the 2000 shooting death of Beech Grove Police Officer William Toney. Roy Lee Ward was executed in October 2025 for the 2001 rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in Spencer County.
Five men remain on Indiana’s death row at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Whether more executions will be scheduled is uncertain. Capital cases carry significantly higher litigation costs than other murder prosecutions, and ongoing challenges to execution protocols and drug secrecy laws can hold proceedings up for years.