Court sets 'tentative' execution date for Southern Indiana murderer Roy Lee Ward
In an order issued just after 11 a.m. Monday, Chief Justice Loretta Rush preliminarily scheduled Ward to die on Oct. 10. Whether that will happen is still up in the air.
The preliminary order comes a little less than two weeks after Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a motion on June 27 asking the state supreme court to set an execution date. Ward's death will only go forward if the court approves the motion.
Rush and the other justices apparently issued the order Monday to remove an administration roadblock. Rush wrote they did so "out of respect for all parties with important responsibilities."
The court was only performing its "administrative task." The actual execution will depend on both the court's ruling and what actions Ward's attorneys take to try to stop the lethal injection. Their options include everything from federal litigation to asking Gov. Mike Braun to commute Ward's sentence.
"... Other state and federal officials must work backwards from that date to fulfill their own important duties related to an ordered execution," Rush wrote. "... The Department of Correction must carryout the execution, navigating all the logistics that entails."
One of the biggest? Whether Indiana will actually have its new lethal injection drug on hand.
In early June, Braun announced the state had exhausted its supply of pentobarbital, the drug it has used to carry out two executions since December: those of Joseph Corcoran and Benjamin Ritchie.
"We've got to address the broad issue of, what are other methods, the discussion of capital punishment in general," Braun told reporters at the Indiana Statehouse on June 3. "And then something that costs, I think, $300,000 a pop that has a 90-day shelf life, I'm not going to be for putting it on the shelf and then letting them expire."
Ward fatally stabbed Payne, a 15-year-old Heritage Hills cheerleader and honor roll student, while she was at home in Dale with her younger sister on July 11, 2001. He knocked on their door and lied to Stacy, claiming he was looking for a lost dog. Police responded to a 911 call from Stacy's sister and reportedly found Ward still holding the knife he used in the murder.
Payne played in the high school band, attended youth group at St. Joseph Catholic Church, and had recently started a job at Jenk's Pizza.
A jury sentenced Ward to death in 2002, only to have that overturned on appeal. In 2007, another jury came to same conclusion, and that conviction stuck.
Ward's attorneys have spent the years since filing numerous motions and lawsuits to delay his execution. Indiana's lack of a consistent lethal injection drug supply has slowed things down as well. The executions of Corcoran and Ritchie were the first in the state since 2009.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: When will Roy Lee Ward be executed?
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