Beshear says technicality keeping him from executing KY death row inmate
Gov. Andy Beshear is, for now, opposed to signing a warrant to execute a Kentucky death row inmate convicted of killing a sheriff and a deputy in Powell County.
But the Democratic governor didn’t express any wider opposition to the death penalty. Rather, Beshear told reporters Thursday at a news conference, the state has not gone through the full regulatory process and still lacks the drugs needed to carry out an execution.
Despite a push from Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman and Sen. Brandon Smith, R-Hazard, who represents Powell County, Beshear said he reads a recent court order differently than Coleman and Smith.
“They think it means that I can go ahead and sign one of those warrants, but there is another part of the order that says, ‘Before I can sign any of the warrants, we have to have another regulation go through the process.’ We very promptly wrote that, and it’s going through the process right now. So, I believe, being a member of the bar, that I’ve got to follow those orders, and that that part of the order prevents me from signing it at this time,” Beshear said.
Before 1976, Kentucky executed 424 people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since 1976, just three people have been executed. Marco Allen Chapman in 2008 was the most recent.
The inmate in question is Ralph Baze, a now-55-year-old man who was sentenced to death by a jury in 1994.
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 resumed in many states. They did, too, in Kentucky, although only briefly, and not for Baze.
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.
Beshear added that companies with the proper lethal injection drugs “won’t provide” them to Kentucky.
“Right now, Kentucky does not have the necessary drugs that would be required to carry out any execution if one went forward, and the companies are saying that they won’t provide it. Now, the Attorney General has offered to help on that, (but) we haven’t seen other states be able to secure, at least from what I’ve seen, what’s required under Kentucky’s regulations,” Beshear said.
Coleman has sought to bring back the death penalty in Kentucky since the early days of his tenure starting in 2024. His office has insisted throughout the summer that Beshear should set a date for Baze’s execution.
Smith, in a letter to Beshear, asked for the governor to say the victims’ names — sheriff Steve Bennett and deputy Arthur Briscoe —as well as respond to a family member’s letter and request the appropriate lethal injection drugs from the federal government.
Smith’s final request was for Beshear to commit publicly to signing Baze’s death warrant “until no artificial barriers remain,” something that Beshear has not yet done, though in his comments he said he’s working toward getting the regulations approved to do so.
“Red tape aside, nothing stops the governor from saying whether he supports this death warrant. These families want to know where he stands,” Smith wrote in a Herald-Leader oped.
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.”
When asked about expanding the death penalty, Beshear said “it would depend on the crime.”
Steve Beshear, the governor’s father, was in office when Marco Allen Chapman was executed in 2008 for fatally stabbing two children in Gallatin County.
“I remember that case, and I remember those kids, that never had an opportunity to grow up in this commonwealth, to make memories like mine,” Andy Beshear said. “That was a heinous crime, that I believe still deserves this type of penalty.”
The Baze question could prove tricky for Beshear, who is not shy about a potential run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.
According to a 2024 Gallup poll, about 53% of Americans support the death penalty in cases of murder.
That number is much lower for registered Democrats. Gallup found 38% of Democrats in Generation X or older support the death penalty for murders, and the number is 27% for Gen Z and Millennials.
This story was originally published October 23, 2025 at 2:25 PM.
