The Sunday South Bend Tribune reported, "What do recent botched executions mean for death penalty?" by Bob Blake. It's a lengthy article examining Indiana's death penalty.
In Indiana, there are currently 13 inmates — all men — on death row at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, according to Doug Garrison, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Correction. One woman also faces a death sentence in Indiana, however, she is currently serving a life sentence in Ohio, Garrison said.
Since 1977, 97 people have been sentenced to death in Indiana with 20 executions, according to information from the Indiana Public Defender Council. Matthew Eric Wrinkles, 49, was the last Hoosier to face execution. He was executed in December 2009 for a 1994 triple murder near Evansville.
The next inmate likely to face execution in the state is Michael Dean Overstreet, according to Garrison. Overstreet was convicted of the September 1997 rape and murder of a college student in Johnson County. An attorney for Overstreet is challenging his competency to face execution, arguing he doesn’t understand what the state intends to do to him. The argument is set to be heard beginning Tuesday in South Bend.
"Could Pennsylvania botch an execution?" is by Laurie Mason Schroeder in today's Allentown Morning Call.
Northampton mass murderer Michael Ballard has a death wish. Are Pennsylvania prison executioners ready to grant it?
In the wake of three highly publicized botched executions this year in other parts of the country, as well as a shortage of the drugs used to kill those on death row, it's a question worth asking.
State prison officials say they're ready to give Ballard, or any other condemned prisoner, his final sentence. But a lack of transparency, especially about the drugs used in lethal injections, has raised concerns.
"Pennsylvania could be facing some of the same questions that these other states are now faced with," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group that maintains statistics on capital punishment.
"No state wants to have to defend a two-hour, botched spectacle."
Related posts are in the botch category index. Earlier coverage Of Michael Ballard's case in Pennsylvania begins at the link.
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