Kentucky hasn’t carried out an execution since 2008, when its lethal injection practices came under scrutiny. Now, pressure is mounting to resume capital punishment, and Governor Andy Beshear says a regulation required to sign a death warrant is currently under review.
In 2010, Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd blocked executions over concerns with the state’s lethal injection process, and that ruling has remained in effect for 15 years.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is pushing to restart the process, filing motions that could potentially lift the 2010 ban. Meanwhile, State Senator Brandon Smith, a Republican from Hazard, is urging Beshear to sign a death warrant for Ralph Baze, who was convicted of killing a sheriff and deputy more than three decades ago.
On Thursday, Beshear said one part of the court’s requirements for reconsidering the ban is in motion. “One of its holdings was we did not have a regulation necessary before signing any death warrant, so that regulation is going through the process right now,” the governor said. “It is filed, it is in the current schedule, and that’s the step that had to be taken first under that order. And that’s the step that’s being taken.”
Currently, 24 people remain on death row in Kentucky.
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