By Christopher Leach
Lexington Herald-Leader
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky’s attorney general has asked a court to overrule the governor and sign a death warrant for an inmate convicted of killing a sheriff and a deputy in Powell County more than 30 years ago.
The inmate in question is Ralph Baze, a now-70-year-old man who was sentenced to death by a jury in 1994. In June, Attorney General Russell Coleman asked Gov. Andy Beshear to sign a death warrant for Baze, but the governor cited legal reasons and has not signed the warrant.
Beshear has said the state has not gone through the full regulatory process and lacks the drugs necessary to carry out an execution. But on Friday, Coleman announced that he filed a motion in Franklin Circuit Court asking the court to overrule Beshear, saying there is no impediment to the governor’s signing of a death warrant.
“Respectfully, the governor is wrong,” Coleman wrote in his filing. “But because he has rejected the attorney general’s legal advice, only the judicial branch can settle this dispute.”
Kentucky has had a pause on lethal injections since 2010, when Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled that executions should be prohibited for several reasons, including the state’s lack of an automatic stay for intellectually disabled death row inmates, and changes to legal injection protocols.
Coleman has sought to bring back the death penalty in Kentucky since the early days of his tenure. Last year, he filed a motion to supersede Shepherd’s decision, arguing that new changes by the Kentucky Department of Corrections have addressed a court’s previous concerns about the legality of the death penalty.
For months, Coleman has insisted that Beshear’s reasons for not signing Baze’s death warrant are invalid, and he is obligated to uphold the law. In Kentucky, a death warrant is an executive order signed by the governor that authorizes the Department of Corrections to execute a prisoner.
The warrant sets a date and time for the execution, and it’s required for the state to put a prisoner to death after they’ve been convicted and exhausted their appeals.
“Governor Beshear can — and is legally required — to uphold the law and deliver justice for the families of Sheriff Bennett and Deputy Briscoe by signing a death warrant,” Coleman wrote in the filing. “Instead of fulfilling his duty, the governor is hiding behind legal fictions and make-believe obstacles. We’re asking the court to clarify the governor’s legal responsibility and end the decades-long wait these families have endured.”
Baze’s case went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007, as lawyers questioned the constitutionality of lethal injection. The case prompted a seven-month pause on executions nationwide while the highest court considered a ruling.
Lethal injections briefly resumed in many states, including Kentucky, but not for Baze. The state’s most recent execution was in 2008.
Beshear has expressed some support for the death penalty in recent years, including when asked about it at a debate during his reelection campaign. On the debate stage, he said, “some crimes (are) so terrible and some people so dangerous that I do believe this law (the death penalty) needs to continue to be on the books.”
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