Bill would abolish death penalty in Indiana

An Indiana state senator hopes to end the death penalty in Indiana.

Senate Bill 136, authored by Sen. Lonnie Randolph, would repeal the state's death penalty statute and reduce the punishments of those awaiting execution to life imprisonment without parole.

The death penalty in Indiana is allowed only in murder cases. The bill also would prohibit the court from sentencing a convicted murderer to life imprisonment without parole if that person is deemed mentally ill. Randolph was not immediately available for comment.

The Legislative Services Agency estimates that the bill, if it becomes law, would cost the state about $1 million to keep the current death row population imprisoned for life.

About a dozen inmates are awaiting execution in Indiana. In November, a judge spared a man from a death sentence in the 1997 murder and rape of a Franklin College student. St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Jane Woodward Miller ruled that Michael Dean Overstreet was not mentally competent to be executed.

Six people are awaiting death penalty trials in Indiana, including Major Davis Jr., the man charged with murder in the July killing of Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer Perry Renn, and Kenneth "Cody" Rackemann, one of four suspects in the February quadruple homicide on the Southeastside. More recently, the Clark County prosecutor's office filed its intent to seek the death penalty against Joseph Oberhansley, who is accused of killing his girlfriend and eating her organs.

According to the Legislative Services Agency, the average cost of representing a defendant facing a death penalty is significantly more expensive than that of someone facing life imprisonment without parole. The agency estimates that the state would save about $166,400 per murder case if life imprisonment without parole becomes the most serious sentence a defendant could face.

Death penalty cases are more expensive than other murder cases because, for one thing, the trials have two phases. The first phase is to decide whether a defendant is guilty or innocent. If the defendant is found guilty, a second phase determines whether he or she should be executed. Prosecutors must show that at least one of 16 aggravating circumstances outlined in the statute applies. These include rape, death of an on-duty police officer, mutilation or torture, and whether the defendant was in custody, on probation or on parole at the time of the murder.

Randolph, a Democrat from East Chicago, introduced similar legislation in 2011 and 2013. Both bills died. The chance of SB 136 passing this legislative session, which convenes Tuesday, is just as slim.

Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, chairman of the Senate Corrections and Criminal Law Committee, where the bill is assigned, has said he would not give SB 136 a hearing. He did not comment further.

Indiana has not had an execution since 2009. The last person to be executed was Matthew Wrinkles, who was convicted of killing his estranged wife, her brother and her brother's wife in 1994.

The state has executed about 150 prisoners, 20 of them in the past four decades.

Indiana is one of 32 states that have a death penalty statute. In recent years, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland abolished theirs.

Capital punishment became law in Indiana in 1897. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned state death penalty laws in 1972. The statute was reinstated in Indiana five years later.

Star reporter Vic Ryckaert contributed to this story.

Call Star reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444-6209. Follow her on Twitter: @kristine_guerra.