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Indiana to execute Benjamin Ritchie after Gov. Mike Braun declines to grant clemency

By Brandon Smith

Posted May 14, 2025

The eastern exterior of the Indiana Statehouse, at night.

The authority to grant clemency to an Indiana death row inmate rests with the governor. The Indiana Parole Board can provide a recommendation to the governor. (Brandon Smith/IPB News)

Gov. Mike Braun announced Wednesday he will not grant clemency to death row inmate Benjamin Ritchie, convicted of the 2000 killing of Beech Grove police officer William Toney.

That comes after the Indiana Parole Board did not recommend clemency.

The board held clemency hearings earlier this week and last week. Ritchie’s team argued lifelong brain damage from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder should spare him from execution.

In a letter to the governor, Gwendolyn Horth, the chair of the parole board said they considered that evidence. But she said the board also weighed Ritchie’s history of conduct issues in prison and the promise a jury made to Toney’s friends and family that Ritchie would be put to death.

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The letter said the mitigating factors — Ritchie’s prenatal alcohol exposure, childhood lead exposure and history of abuse and neglect as a child — were already considered during Ritchie’s original trial and appeals process.

Ritchie’s execution is scheduled for May 20.

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.