LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky's attorney general is joining a push for Gov. Andy Beshear to authorize the execution of an inmate who has spent decades on death row.
Ralph Baze was sentenced to death in 1994 on his conviction for the 1992 murders of Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett and deputy Arthur Briscoe. According to LEX18 News, Bennett and Briscoe were trying to serve a warrant on Baze when he shot them.
The now 55-year-old is one of 25 inmates currently on death row in Kentucky, according to Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, who wrote a letter to Beshear last month urging the governor to sign a death warrant for Baze's execution to "provide long-overdue justice to the families of the slain officers."
Kentucky's Constitution gives the state's governor the sole authority to commute death sentences, according to a 2024 investigation by the Kentucky Lantern.
Smith's letter detailed how Baze's case reached the national stage in 2007 when the U.S. Supreme Court took on the review of Kentucky's lethal injection protocol and whether it was constitutional. That case sparked a pause in executions across the country. Kentucky has not executed a death row inmate since 2008.
A 2010 injunction by the Franklin Circuit Court put all executions in the state on hold because of concerns over the state's execution protocol, according to the Kentucky Lantern's investigation. The outlet reported Judge Phillip Shepherd "ruled that state regulations lacked 'adequate safeguards' to prevent the execution of 'insane' or 'intellectually disabled' defendants."
In 2019, the same judge ruled Kentucky's execution regulations unconstitutional because they "failed to provide for an automatic stay of the death penalty if a Department of Corrections review showed 'reasonable grounds to believe the condemned inmate is intellectually disabled,'" the Kentucky Lantern reported.
During a news conference Tuesday in Frankfort to announce a lawsuit against online gaming platform Roblox, Attorney General Russell Coleman was asked about ongoing efforts to resume the death penalty in the state. In his response, Coleman mentioned Baze's case specifically.
"I have a duty as attorney general, as do my colleagues in this office to enforce our ultimate punishment here. The death penalty remains our ultimate punishment for the most egregious offenses. Some weeks ago, I sent a letter to Governor Beshear asking him to sign a death warrant for Ralph Baze. Now, for some of you, I see your nods, you remember Mr. Baze," Coleman said. "Mr. Baze in 1992 lay in wait for the sheriff and deputy sheriff of Powell County and, with his SKS, he assassinated these two law enforcement officers. He has been on death row for decades now."
Coleman went on to criticize Beshear's response to resuming the death penalty.
"The governor gave, (I) guess what we call in Kentucky a red herring or straw dog answer," Coleman said. "What our governor said was 'Ah, there's a reg (regulation) that needs to work its way through before we can move forward.'"
The attorney general called the answer "a brilliant answer by a smart lawyer."
"There is a reg (regulation) that's working its way through and it, it applies to those who have intellectual disability claims. There is a body of litigation that has been appealed up to the Supreme Court of the United States. Intellectual disability claims. Mr. Baze doesn't have an intellectual disability claim," said Coleman. "There is no new reg, there's no new statute, there's nothing needed from the General Assembly or the courts for our governor to enforce the law of this Commonwealth and bring justice to the family of two slain law enforcement officers."
In a social media post Sept. 25, Coleman said, "It's time to uphold the law and set an execution date."
According to FOX 56 News, Beshear responded to Smith's letter during a Team Kentucky news briefing last week.
"One of its holdings was that we did not have a regulation that would be necessary before signing any death warrant, so that regulation is going through the process right now," he said. "It is filed, it is in the current schedule."
In response to Coleman's comments Tuesday, FOX 56 News reported a statement from a spokesperson for Beshear that cited the 2010 injunction putting all executions in the state on hold until certain criteria were met.
In March 2024, Coleman filed motions to resolve that injunction, arguing that the Department of Corrections "has updated protocols and that federal action now provides a path to access lethal injection drugs." That followed amended regulations published by Beshear's administration that brought Kentucky into compliance with the 2010 ruling.
The state Supreme Court rejected Coleman's filing, leaving the matter with the circuit court. In his ruling, Shepherd wrote that Kentucky has not shown that the 2010 injunction "is preventing it from taking any specific action to implement the death penalty," according to the Kentucky Lantern.
Several Kentucky lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, have filed legislation to abolish the death penalty in the state and replace it with life in prison without parole. None of the proposals have advanced. Last year, lawmakers passed the"Safer Kentucky Act" that expanded crimes that could warrant the death penalty.
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