Indiana death row inmate appeals to U.S. Supreme Court as scheduled execution date nears

(WPTA) – A man on Indiana’s death row for killing a Beech Grove police officer is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court weeks before his scheduled execution.

The petition from Benjamin Ritchie’s lawyers comes nearly one month after the Indiana Supreme Court ordered him executed May 20.

According to the filing, the court failed to take into account Ritchie’s ineffective lawyers at trial and in other post-conviction matters.

Ritchie’s attorneys say past counsel failed to investigate evidence related to brain damage from Partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, with which Ritchie has been diagnosed.

“While the jury was made aware that Ritchie’s mother drank during pregnancy, no evidence of any fetal alcohol syndromes was introduced,” the filing reads.

In a final plea for clemency, Ritchie appeared before the Indiana Parole Board on Monday, May 5.

The board will have another clemency hearing for public comment next Monday, May 12, in Indianapolis at the Indiana Government Center South Auditorium.

The board will hear testimony in favor of clemency from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and testimony opposed to clemency from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

After both hearings, the board will make a recommendation, but a final clemency decision about whether to commute Ritchie’s death sentence to life in prison without parole will ultimately be up to the governor.

There’s no timetable for the board, or Braun, to issue opinions.

Ritchie was sentenced to death in 2002 for the Sept. 29, 2000, shooting death of Ofc. Bill Toney.

Per court documents, the underlying crime began as a police pursuit of a stolen van. Toney pursued Ritchie on foot, and Ritchie ultimately fired four shots at the police officer, who did not survive the shooting.

Ritchie and six other men remain on the state’s death row at the Indiana State Prison.

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