Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Indiana. The last person executed by the state of Indiana was Benjamin Ritchie on May 20, 2025; Ritchie was convicted of the murder of a police officer.
The execution chamber, [1] and men's death row are in Indiana State Prison. [2] Indiana Women's Prison has housed women with death sentences. [3]
Federal executions take place at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana; these executions, however, are entirely separate and not under the control of the State of Indiana, but rather administered by the federal government based on federal convictions.
Previously Indiana law required female death row inmates (not about to be executed) to be held at Indiana State Prison even though it was a male facility. [4]
When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous.
In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, the judge decides the sentence. [5]
Indiana was one of the four states (alongside Alabama, Delaware and Florida) that had allowed a judge to override a jury's recommendation of a life sentence to the death penalty or death penalty to a life sentence. The Indiana override statute was abolished in 2002. [6]
The power of clemency belongs to the Governor of Indiana after receiving a non-binding advice from the Indiana Parole Board. [7]
The following constitutes murder with aggravating circumstances, which is the only capital crime in Indiana. [8]
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia held all state capital punishment sentencing statutes were unconstitutional. As a result, all seven men on Indiana's death row at the time had their sentences reduced to life in prison. The Indiana General Assembly enacted a new death penalty sentencing statute to replace the statute struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman in 1973. In 1977, the Indiana Supreme Court struck down Indiana's 1973 capital punishment statute based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Woodson v. North Carolina. The death sentences of the eight men on Indiana's death row were set aside. On October 1, 1977, a new Indiana capital punishment statute, modeled on statutes upheld by U.S. Supreme Court, took effect. It remains in effect today. [9]
The state resumed executions on March 9, 1981, with the judicial electrocution of mass murderer Steven Judy for four murders. [10] Gregory Resnover, who was one of the two men found guilty of the 1980 murder of Indianapolis Police Sergeant Jack Ohrberg, was executed by the electric chair on December 8, 1994, therefore becoming the third and last person executed by this method in Indiana, [11] before lethal injection replaced electrocution as the only method of execution in Indiana in 1995. Resnover's accomplice, Tommie Smith, was the first to be executed by lethal injection on July 18, 1996. [12]
Indiana's execution chamber is located in the Indiana State Prison.