INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Department of Correction has confirmed the state doesn’t have the necessary drugs to execute any of the eight men who are on death row.
Indiana is one of 29 states that allows capital punishment. But it’s been nearly a decade since the state’s last execution, and no new inmates have been added to Indiana’s death row since 2013.
Meanwhile, the eight men who are now on death row are sitting in state prison, waiting to be executed.
“I think it’s cruel and unusual punishment to have someone waiting that long for their execution,” said veteran Indianapolis defense attorney Eric Koselke. “I can’t imagine living under the threat of death for so long.”
Koselke has been involved in about 30 death penalty cases. None of his clients have been executed.
Eric Holmes is the longest-serving death row inmate in Indiana. He was sentenced in 1993 for killing two people during a robbery, The Journal Gazette
The correction department changed the cocktail for lethal injection in 2014 when its supply of lethal injection drugs expired. Indiana, other states and the federal government have struggled to obtain the drugs needed because many pharmaceutical manufacturers don’t want to be associated with executions.
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