The scheduled execution of a Southern Indiana man convicted of brutally killing a Spencer County teenager in 2001 is still on track after the Indiana Supreme Court denied his motion for post-conviction relief Wednesday.
The state is set to execute Roy Lee Ward, 53, on Oct. 10, chief justice Loretta Rush wrote in the decision. The court initially set that as a "tentative" date in a July ruling.
Ward was convicted of murder and rape in the July 11, 2001 death of Stacy Payne: a 15-year-old cheerleader and honor roll student from Heritage Hills High School.
According to police, Ward knocked on Payne's door that day and claimed he was looking for a lost dog. That was a lie. He then attacked and killed Payne while her sister hid upstairs and called 911. When police responded to the scene, Ward was reportedly still holding the knife he used in the murder.
A jury sentenced Ward to death in 2002, only to have that overturned on appeal. In 2007, another jury came to same conclusion, and that conviction stuck.
Ward's attorneys have spent the years since filing numerous appeals to prevent his execution. In the latest, they challenged Indiana's lethal injection protocol on several grounds.
According to court records, attorneys argue that state officials' failure to answer numerous public records requests about how Indiana transports, stores and tests the pentobarbital it now uses in lethal injections obstructed "his ability to challenge the constitutionality of his execution."
Attorneys also brought up problems that arose during the execution of Benjamin Ritchie: another Indiana convicted murderer who was put to death on May 20 for the 2000 murder of Beach Grove police officer William Toney.
Ritchie's defense attorney, Steve Schutte, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle that Ritchie "twitched violently for about three seconds" after being injected. Ward's attorneys said that created a "substantial risk that Ward will suffer severe pain during his execution in violation of the Eighth Amendment and Article 1, Section 16 of the Indiana Constitution."
The appeal also claimed the one-way glass in the execution chamber at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City could keep Ward from "knowing whether the Department of Correction has complied with his statutory right to have his own witnesses present," among other complaints.
Rush shot all that down.
"Each of Ward’s claims purport to present new evidence on the state’s chosen execution protocol. But – critical to our decision – none of his claims challenge the validity of his convictions or his sentence," the ruling states. "And one of the central limitations of our post-conviction rules 'is that relief is generally available only from a conviction or sentence.'
"... Ward does not seek relief from his death sentence but only from the method by which that sentence is carried out.”
Justice Christopher Goff agreed in part with Rush's ruling, but dissented over the records requests issue. He said the state should delay scheduling Ward's execution until the requests are resolved.
By law, lethal injection is Indiana's only method of capital punishment. And the state carried out the recent executions of Ritchie and Joseph Corcoran using one drug and one drug only: pentobarbital.
"If the state is required to disclose the records under (the Access to Public Records Act), and if the records show the one-drug protocol may be cruel-and-unusual punishment, Ward can make a subsequent civil-rights claim or request to file a successive (post-conviction relief) petition, depending on the relief he seeks," Goff wrote in his dissent.
The state of lethal injection in Indiana
The Capital Chronicle reported that Indiana spent $1.175 million over two transactions – one during former Gov. Eric Holcomb's administration and another under current Gov. Mike Braun – for supplies of pentobarbital.
The drug, however, has a short shelf life, causing $600,000 worth to expire before it could be used in an execution, Braun said. The single dose for Ritchie's execution alone cost $275,000.
Braun has since said he wants state legislators to weigh in on the fate of the death penalty in Indiana.
"I’m going to encourage the state legislature to look at it – in terms of, is that what we’re going to use, and then on the issue itself,” he told the Capital Chronicle about both capital punishment and lethal injections. “I’m very agnostic on that. I want them to weigh in.”
Rush wrote that Ward still has "other avenues" to challenge the method of his execution. But if it does occur, it will finally carry out a sentence that's been more than 20 years in the making.
If Stacy Payne was alive today, she'd be 39 years old. The Dale, Indiana teenager played in the Heritage Hills band and was a member of student council, her obituary stated. She won awards for her speaking ability, and had just started a job at Jenk's Pizza.
"Stacy was a compassionate person who loved life and shared the beauty of her smile with everyone she met. She always put the needs of others before her own and gave 100% effort to everything she did," her family wrote in a thank-you note to the community in the Aug. 6, 2001 edition of the Jasper Herald. "She genuinely loved her family and friends and wanted everyone else to do the same. Stacy will always hold a special place in our hearts and in the hearts of all that knew her.
"She will never be forgotten."
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