As Indiana lawmakers prepare to reconvene in January for a shortened 2026 legislative session, multiple Republican legislators have filed bills to expand how the state carries out death sentences — reopening a debate over capital punishment that stalled in the Statehouse earlier this year.
At the heart of two bills — one in the House and another in the Senate — are additional execution options beyond lethal injection, which is currently the only method authorized under Indiana law.
Senate Bill 11, authored by Indianapolis Republican Sen. Mike Young, would allow Indiana to use a firing squad to carry out executions under certain circumstances.
Under Young’s proposal, the death penalty could be inflicted by firing squad if the Department of Correction determines — at least 30 days before a scheduled execution — that it is unable to conduct an execution by lethal injection due to the unavailability of required drugs.
The bill would also allow a condemned person to request execution by firing squad at least 30 days before the scheduled date.
Separately a House bill authored by Republican Reps. Jim Lucas of Seymour and Andrew Ireland of Indianapolis, would allow executions to be carried out by either firing squad or nitrogen hypoxia. Lucas said lethal injection would remain the default method, but condemned individuals could request an alternative.
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The Indiana Capital Chronicle obtained a copy of the bill which was filed this week but as of late Wednesday had not yet been published on the General Assembly’s website where all filed bills are publicly accessible.
“It’s a simple bill,” Lucas told the Capital Chronicle. “We’re going to go with drugs as the first option,” Lucas said. “But if (the condemned) want to choose one of these other options, they can.”
Lucas said the measure was drafted in collaboration with DOC officials and is driven largely by the state’s difficulty securing lethal injection drugs and the cost associated with executions. In the last year, Indiana officials paid up to $300,000 for a single dose of pentobarbital.
He said the goal is to align Indiana’s exertion protocols with other states and the federal government, and that his bill “was an ask from the White House.”
Could legislation pass — or stalemate?
Young’s legislation additionally details procedures for firing squad executions, requiring a five-member team made up of DOC officers selected by the prison warden.
Four officers would fire weapons containing live ammunition, while one would fire a weapon containing a blank round, with firearms loaded in a way that prevents squad members from knowing which ammunition they are firing. The bill would also shield the identities of firing squad members from public disclosure and legal discovery.
Currently, five states authorize the use of firing squads under certain circumstances: Idaho, Utah, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Nine states permit executions by lethal gas, but only five — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma — specifically authorize death by nitrogen hypoxia, a process that deprives inmates of oxygen using nitrogen gas.
So far, Alabama and Louisiana are the only states that have performed executions by nitrogen gas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Lawmakers are set to reconvene Jan. 5.
Republican leadership has not yet said where the supermajority caucuses in either chamber stand on new legislation, or if the bills will get committee hearings during the short session, which is scheduled to conclude by the end of February following redistricting debates in December.
The proposed bills follow more than a year of concerns over the state’s ongoing difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs. The problem that has delayed executions nationwide and prompted states to revisit alternative methods.
Indiana has spent more than $1 million over the last year to procure pentobarbital, and Gov. Mike Braun said previously that the state has faced difficulties accessing the lethal injection drug.
But when asked earlier this week about pending death penalty legislation, the Republican governor struck a cautious tone.
“Even though I’m anticipating that there might be some stuff there — I’ll look at that,” Braun said, referring to death penalty bills. But he added that such measures “don’t rise to the level of other issues,” such as lowering health care costs and passing reforms related to education and utilities.
“If it comes up,” he continued, “then I’ll view it on the merits at the time.”
Hoosier prosecutors, meanwhile, have urged lawmakers to preserve the death penalty as an option.
Vicki Becker, the Elkhart County prosecutor speaking on behalf of the Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys, said prosecutors oppose removing capital punishment as a tool — regardless of how the legislature ultimately structures it.
“State of Indiana, prosecutors don’t want to lose tools. They don’t want to lose tools,” Becker said. “And in the grand scheme of things, when we have cases that truly are the worst of the worst, we need to have those tools.”
Becker said prosecutors will serve as subject-matter experts as lawmakers debate the issue but emphasized that the final decision rests with the General Assembly.
Opposition mounts, too
Opposition to the death penalty has also intensified.
On Tuesday, more than 70 handwritten letters from pastors and members of Indianapolis First Friends and Shalom Zone, a self-described interfaith group, were delivered to the governor’s office calling for abolition. Braun briefly met with the group and promised a more formal conversation would follow.
“Like so many Hoosiers, 23 other states, and the entire European Union, we believe the death penalty should be abolished,” said Jodie English, a Quaker who helped organize the letter drive.
Braun — whose administration oversaw two executions in 2025 — has called on lawmakers to take up the issue but has stopped short of endorsing any specific execution methods.
The governor has pointed to South Carolina, however, which recently reinstated the firing squad as an option after years of delays due to its inability to obtain lethal injection drugs.
In June, Braun disclosed that Indiana officials spent $1.175 million on lethal injection doses over the past year — $600,000 of which was spent on drugs that expired before use. The cost has been between $275,000 and $300,000 per dose.
But Braun’s office has since refused to disclose how much the state paid for the latest three sets of lethal injection drugs purchased by the DOC in recent months. At least one of those doses was used for Roy Ward’s execution in October.
Braun has maintained, too, that the high cost and short shelf life of the drug should prompt new discussions on how the state approaches capital punishment moving forward.
Lawmakers failed to advance several death-penalty-related proposals during the 2025 session, including a Republican-backed bill to abolish the death penalty altogether.
That proposal drew some bipartisan support in both chambers but never received a committee hearing. At the time, House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said the issue lacked sufficient consensus to move forward during an already hectic session.
Lucas said he’s confident that his bill will receive a hearing in the House and advance out of the chamber, but he was less certain about its prospects in the Senate.
“I absolutely refuse to predict what the Senate is going to do on anything,” he said. “I’m over in the House. I’m working the House side. That’s my focus right now.”
Five men remain on Indiana’s death row at the state prison in Michigan City. Since December 2024, the state has carried out death sentences for three inmates: Joseph Corcoran, Benjamin Ritchie and Ward. Corcoran’s marked Indiana’s first executions in more than a decade.
The state has not requested execution dates for any of the remaining death row inmates.
“We’re not relitigating the death penalty or anything like that,” Lucas said. “And we want to keep this as humane and efficient as possible, for all parties involved.”
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
