Claims capital punishment violates state constitution
Fort Wayne attorney David Frank filed the suit last week on behalf of Roy Lee Ward, who was sentenced to death in 2001 for the rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne in Spencer County.
The suit, filed in La Porte Superior Court 2, names Gov. Eric Holcomb and Robert Carter Jr., commissioner of the Indiana Department of Corrections, as defendants. A similar motion, filed last year on behalf of murder suspect Marcus Dansby, is pending in Allen County
Ward’s sentence was appealed all the way to the Indiana Supreme Court, which upheld the death penalty in the case in 2012. However, a federal judge issued a stay of execution that same year, and no date has been set for execution by lethal injection at ISP.
The suit claims the death penalty is “arbitrary and capricious, without legitimate penological end, offensive to evolving standards of decency, and unconstitutional.”
It claims Indiana should follow the lead of other states in outlawing capital punishment. The state has not executed anyone since 2009, the complaint says, but still has 9 inmates on death row, seven with an “active sentence of death.”
The death sentence of Fredrick Baer was reversed, while Michael Overstreet was found incompetent to be executed, according to the suit. Those still under a death sentence include Ward, Joseph Corcoran, William Gibson, Eric Holmes, Kevin Isom, Benjamin Ritchie and Jeffrey Weisheit.
It claims the death penalty violates the Indiana Constitution’s:
- Article 1, Section 1 as it would “subject that individual to unequal punishment and alienate him from his constitutional right to life”
- Article 1, Section 15, as it would “subject that individual to arbitrary, capricious, and unnecessary force and rigor offensive to evolving standards of decency”
- Article 1, Section 16, which bans “cruel and unusual punishment”
- Article 1, Section 18, which states the “penal code shall be founded on the principles or reformation, and not of vindictive justice.”
It says the “only rationale for the death penalty is vindictiveness and vengeance,” claiming inmates on death row “cannot escape prison”; “will suffer physically and psychologically if executed”; and “cannot be rehabilitated if executed.”
Another part of the suit questions the drugs the IDOC would use, saying the state “has not disclosed the substance or substances it intends to use to execute individuals.”
The suit asks the court to declare capital punishment unconstitutional; issue a preliminary injunction against the state inflicting capital punishment; and issue a permanent injunction restraining the state from inflicting capital punishment. It also seeks attorney’s fees and costs.
The lawsuit – Roy Ward v. Gov. Eric Holcomb, Robert Carter Jr. – has been assigned to Judge Richard Stalbrink. Court records show a telephonic attorney conference with the judge is scheduled for March 26.
A similar motion was filed in October 2018 on behalf of Dansby, who is scheduled to stand trial in April on four counts of murder. When Allen County prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty, defense attorneys filed a motion asking the trial judge to declare the death penalty unconstitutional and bar prosecutors from seeking it.
Their motion alleges “systemic defects in the administration of capital punishment” from pre-trial proceedings through federal review “violate due process, the right to a jury trial, and state and federal constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.”
It claims “geography, quality of defense representation and race” disproportionately determine who is sentenced to death, not the severity of the crime.
A separate motion seeks to bar the death penalty in Dansby’s case because of his age – he was 20 at the time of the murders for which he is charged.
The IDOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a spokesman for the Attorney General’s office said they could not comment on pending litigation.
If the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional, death sentences would be commuted to life sentences under a bill before the legislature. Senate Bill 301, introduced by state Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, would abolish the death penalty and commute sentences to life without parole.
Capital punishment
A lawsuit filed on behalf of a death row inmate at the Indiana State Prison includes some background on the death penalty in Indiana, and other states’ banning of the practice.
Until 1913, Indiana used hanging as its method of execution, and 13 people were hanged. From 1914 to 1995, the state used electrocution, and 62 died in the electric chair. Since 1995, Indiana has used lethal injection, and 19 people have been executed in that manner.
Lethal injection executions included Tommie J. Smith in 1996, and according to the suit, “State officers were physically unable to inject lethal substances into Mr. Smith’s arms due to the small size of his veins. A catheter was attempted to be inserted into Mr. Smith’s neck, twice, but the insertion was not successful. Finally, after 49 minutes of attempting to inject Mr. Smith, lethal substances were administered ... through his foot. Mr. Smith was pronounced dead 20 minutes later.”
No one was executed in Indiana from 1961-81; 20 were executed from 1981-2009; and no one has been executed since. Indiana has never executed a woman.
Wisconsin abolished capital punishment in 1853; Minnesota in 1911; Michigan in 1847; Iowa in 1965; Illinois in 2011; and the State of Washington in 2018.
Source: The La Porte County Herald-Argus, January 25, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
