Indiana Man is killed in the second execution of the state in 15 years because of murder of officers

A man from Indiana, who was convicted of the murder of a police officer in 2000, was killed in the second execution of the state since 2009 by fatal injection. Indiana took up the executions in December after a 15-year break.

Benjamin Ritchie45, has been in the center for more than two decades since his condemnation of the fatal shootout of the Beech Grove Police officer Bill Toney for more than two decades.

According to the Ministry for Correspondence Authorities, Ritchie was executed in Michigan City in Indiana State Prison. Idoc said in an online declaration that the execution process began shortly after midnight and that it was declared dead at 12.46 p.m.

At the beginning of this month, Ritchie told a probation committee that he had changed behind bars in his more than two decades. He apologized for his actions, which led to the murder of the 31-year-old married father of two children.

“I have ruined my life and the lives of other people, and I'm so sorry for this night,” he said. “If I could go back and just shake this child because he wouldn't listen to anyone. You can't take back what you did.”

In Indiana Codes, the inmates of the country parts on the day of the day on which their executions take place must be carried out after sunrise, according to the death penalty Information Center (DPI), a non -profit organization that researches and collects data for capital punishment.

Indiana took up the executions after a break, which were affected due to the lack of fatal injection medication that affected the correction departments nationwide. After its last execution in 2009, the state took a new deadly medication into its minutes to take the defect into account without publishing public information about the change. In 2017, the Indiana Court of Appeal condemned the new minutes and decided that the state Ministry of correction had violated the rules of the rules when it changed and a protocol said goodbye that had never been used in the execution chamber in the direction of execution. According to the death penalty, Indiana held the most years in the state ration in the secretia in the secretia in the secretia.

Prison officers presented photos of the facility chamber before Joseph Corcoran's execution in December. The pictures showed a room that looks like a sparse operating room with a gurney, fluorescent lighting, a floor outflow and an adjacent viewing space. The state has offered only a few more details on the process, including the time when the executions take place.

In 27 countries with death criminal laws, Indiana is one of two who exclude media witnesses. The other, Wyoming, has carried out execution in the last half century. The Associated Press and other media organizations have submitted a federal action in Indiana to apply for access to media.

The execution on Tuesday in Indiana is one of those planned in eight states this year. Ritchies execution and two more in Texas and Tennessee will be carried out this week.

Ritchie was 20 years old when he and others stole a van in Beech Grove near Indianapolis. Then he shot four shots on Toney while hunting and killing him.

At that time, Ritchie was based on the probation of a burglary sentence from 1998.

The 31 -year -old Toney had worked in the Beech Grove police department for two years. He was the first officer of the police department of around 30 officials who were killed in the service of shots. The 14,000 people in the congregation mourned the married father of two children as a neighborly person who showed up to help others.

When Toney died: “All of us, including Bill, had stolen from them that they will never return,” said deputy chief of police Tom Hurrle, who worked with him.

Relatives spoke last week during a grace negotiation and asked the execution to advance.

“It's time. We are all tired,” said Dee Dee Horen, who was Toney's wife. “It is time for this chapter of my story, our history.

Ritchie's lawyers fought against the death penalty and argued that his legal advisor in court was ineffective because his lawyers were not completely examined and presented evidence of his illnesses of the fetal alcohol spectrum and exposure to childhood.

The defenders' current lawyers say that Ritchie had suffered “severe brain damage” because his mother abused alcohol and drugs during pregnancy and had to deal with decision -making. A bipolar disorder was also diagnosed in 2005.

“He finally has some coping skills. He is another man,” said defender Steven Schutte.

Republican governor Mike Braun rejected Ritchies Grace last week, as the Provision Committee recommended. Braun did not explain his decision, but board members said Ritchie's case did not make the bar because of the pendulum commands and while Ritchie's time in prison led a dozen violations, including others.

Indiana's Supreme Court submitted an application to stop the execution, but two judges found that the jury received no precise information about Ritchies brain damage.

Ritchie's lawyers question this decision before the Federal Supreme Court and have also submitted a petition to the US Supreme Court.

Proponents of disabled rights say that Ritchie's brain damage should exclude him from the death penalty.

Ritchie's “ability to fully appreciate the wrongness of his behavior” was “impaired at the time of his crime,” said Dr. Megan Carter, who also testified before the probation is excluded, in an explanation.

Lawyers say that Ritchie changed behind bars in his more than two decades and showed remorse.

As a young man, Ritchie smiled in court and laughed when the verdict was read.

He told a probation committee that he deeply regretted his actions, especially how he acted with Toney's widow.

“I wish I could return to the day in court, because the woman of this man would have deserved to say everything she had to tell me, and this punk child should have kept his mouth and had to say what she had to say,” said Ritchie. “That was her right. That was the right of his family.”

Ritchie spent his last days to get visits to friends and family. According to state law, he was allowed to give up to five witnesses, which is expected to include lawyers and friends.