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Condemned man Roy Lee Ward has withdrawn the final two federal lawsuits that sought to delay his execution, effectively guaranteeing that his death sentence will be carried out before sunrise Friday at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
Ward’s decision ends months of last-minute litigation over how Indiana carries out executions and the lethal injection drugs the state uses. The dismissals close the window for courts to intervene, with the exception of last-minute relief from the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s high court justices denied such efforts ahead of the state’s previous two executions.
The 44-year-old Ward was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2001 rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne in Spencer County.
Gov. Mike Braun, following a recommendation from the Indiana Parole Board, denied Ward clemency in late September.
State officials have not said how much was paid for the most recent three sets of lethal injection drugs purchased by the Department of Correction in recent months, however.
At least one of those sets of pentobarbital is expected to be used for Ward’s execution. Any unused drugs will expire at the end of the month, according to new court documents.
The governor previously disclosed that state officials spent $1.175 million on lethal injection doses over the past year — $600,000 of which was spent by former Gov. Eric Holcomb’s administration on drugs that expired before use. The cost has been between $275,000 and $300,000 per dose.
But neither the governor’s office nor the DOC has responded to multiple questions from the Indiana Capital Chronicle the last 10 days about the price paid for the latest rounds of pentobarbital.
Federal lawsuits dismissed
In an Oct. 2 filing, the Indiana Attorney General’s Office and Ward’s legal team jointly notified the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana that they had resolved the death row inmate’s challenges.
Public defender Joanna Green told the Capital Chronicle the agreement “ensures compliance” with the prison’s written execution protocol.
Ward’s legal team had raised concerns about the state’s drug-handling procedures, including storage temperatures, the source and quality of pentobarbital, and whether the DOC followed its own internal directives after irregularities were reported during Benjamin Ritchie’s execution in May.
“After discovery, the parties came to an agreement that ensures compliance with the protocol and ensures, to the extent possible, Mr. Ward’s execution is not problematic given what happened in Mr. Ritchie’s execution,” she said, referring to accounts from Ritchie’s execution in which witnesses reported seeing the inmate lurch violently against his restraints after the injection began.
DOC officials denied those reports, however, and maintained that “the execution was completed according to protocol.” No members of the media were permitted to witness Ritchie’s execution.
Court filings additionally outline, for the first time, how DOC acquired, transported, and stored the lethal drug used in the state’s two most recent executions.
DOC confirmed that the pentobarbital to be used in Ward’s execution is manufactured, not compounded. The state said in interrogatory responses that the drug was produced by a pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributed “without any post-manufacturing customizations.”
Attorneys for Ward and other death row prisoners have argued that compounded pentobarbital degrades quickly and can lose effectiveness or become contaminated because it is mixed in small batches by compounding pharmacies rather than manufactured under conditions regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Manufactured pentobarbital is produced in sterile facilities under federal quality controls, with longer shelf lives and stricter oversight than compounded alternatives, according to court filings.
DOC indicated that each entity that handled or transported the drug kept it between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius, or about 68 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The drugs were not shipped through the U.S. Mail or by commercial carriers such as UPS or FedEx; instead, DOC employees personally retrieved them from a pharmacy and transported them to the state prison.
The pentobarbital arrived in a sealed cardboard box with a Styrofoam container inside. The vials were in a cardboard holder marked with the manufacturer’s label and accompanied by inventory slips and certificates of analysis.
Each vial was labeled by the original producer, and DOC officials said they possess certificates of analysis for every vial that will be used Friday.
Documents also show the vials of pentobarbital are kept on prison grounds in a locked safe secured by three separate locks. Only three prison employees can open the safe.
Temperatures are checked daily with a thermometer and logged, and the drugs are kept in an environment “suitable for storage,” the state said.
Even so, defense attorneys pointed to potential temperature discrepancies in January and February, when DOC logs showed several consecutive days of storage conditions outside the recommended range — some days as low as 62 F. Green said those fluctuations “may have affected the drugs used” in Ritchie’s execution.
An updated sworn declaration filed by Indiana State Prison Warden Ron Neal also clarified that all three sets of pentobarbital now held by the DOC expire at the end of October.
Earlier, Neal testified that one batch might not expire until March 2026, but he said that was based on an incorrect manufacturing date.
Grievances denied, too
Ward had also filed internal offender grievances asking the DOC to modify the execution chamber — specifically objecting to the capacity of the witness room, the glass partition separating it from the chamber, and the placement of the inmate’s gurney. He also sought to have more witnesses present.
Green said prison officials refused to change the witness chamber, meaning “the witnesses cannot hear Roy and Roy cannot see his witnesses” — as was the case for Ritchie, and for Joseph Corcoran, who was executed at the state prison in December.
State law does not provide access for journalists to witness executions unless invited by the condemned person. A federal lawsuit challenging that restriction is still pending. The Indiana Capital Chronicle is a plaintiff in the case.
The Capital Chronicle witnessed Corcoran’s execution in December but was not invited for Ritchie’s. It remains unclear whether Ward has finalized his witness list.
Per Indiana statute, attendance at executions is limited to: the warden, a warden’s designated assistant, the prison physician, another physician, a spiritual advisor, a prison chaplain, five friends or relatives of the inmate and eight members of the victim’s family.
Final execution preparations
Ward’s execution will be Indiana’s second this year and the third since the state resumed executions after more than a decade’s hiatus.
The state prison’s execution team trains monthly, practicing IV insertions on both volunteers and medical training arms, with practices increasing as an execution nears.
According to discovery records, the execution team conducts regular walkthroughs of the chamber and equipment in the final days before an execution. The DOC confirmed that the condemned inmate undergoes a medical evaluation and weekly vein assessments, while the gurney, IV tubing, and other equipment are inspected and calibrated. The chamber is cleaned and checked daily during the final week.
State filings further show that communication systems connecting the prison to the governor’s office and Indiana Supreme Court are tested, and that DOC staff conduct trial runs to confirm that the separate viewing areas for victims’ families, defense witnesses and state officials function properly.
In the final weeks, prison officials also meet with the inmate to review the lethal injection process, witness lists and options for spiritual counsel or last words.
Three members of the team are responsible for administering the drug through an approximately five- to six-foot IV line, according to the latest court filings.
Those individuals are kept anonymous, and each is trained to administer the drug as part of a coordinated three-person team.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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