In Indiana, “Indiana’s death row dwindles to five — and future executions remain uncertain,” according to Casey Smith in the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Smith states that “after three executions in less than a year — ending a nearly 15-year pause in Indiana’s use of capital punishment — it’s not clear when the state will carry out another.” There are only five men on death row, four of whom are considered competent to be executed, and no one has been sentenced to death in the state since 2013, although eight capital cases have been filed between 2021 and 2024, according to Smith. The costs of capital trials run into millions of dollars, and the difficulty of obtaining lethal injection drugs, and the price if drugs are obtained, are additional hurdles, she writes.
In New Mexico, which abolished the death penalty in 2009, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico announced prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Zachary Babitz, accused of killing 83-year-old Gordon Wilson during a carjacking in Santa Fe in 2024, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports. The 39-year-old Babitz is also accused of robbing a bank in Albuquerque, and car theft prior to being arrested for the carjacking. DOJ is also seeking the death penalty in New York and Vermont, two other states that abolished capital punishment.
In Texas, an NBC News investigation into how the state obtains pentobarbital, the drug it uses to carry out executions, “shows multiple transaction amounts dated October 2024 and February and March of this year totaling more than $775,000.” Because pharmaceutical companies are opposed to their drugs being used in executions, states have gone to great lengths to hide the names of suppliers, and the cost of the drugs. Reprieve US Deputy Director Matt Wells told NBC News,“ When state after state is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market to acquire drugs they cannot legitimately source, we’re talking about a system that is broken beyond repair.” Texas is not alone in spending six-figure sums on lethal injection drugs, NBC News found. Idaho, Utah, Indiana, and Tennessee have all spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.