Indiana prison officials early Thursday morning executed death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit, who was convicted of killing two children in a house fire.
In the lead-up to his execution, Weisheit’s attorneys had lobbied Gov. Mike Braun (R) to commute the man’s sentence to life in prison without parole. Braun denied the request.
Weisheit’s legal team also asked the governor to grant a reprieve and launch an independent investigation into the state’s lethal injection protocol and drug acquisition practices amid concerns that the state purchased $275,000 worth of pentobarbital from a troubled pharmacy being investigated by the state’s attorney general for potential misconduct and safety violations.
But the governor rejected that bid, too, and the Indiana Supreme Court in a 3-2 vote denied an emergency stay of execution late Wednesday night.
Weisheit’s execution was the first of three scheduled for Thursday across the U.S.
In Florida, Jesse Guardado, who pleaded guilty to a fatal stabbing, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Guardado was abused as a teenager at the Dozier School for Boys, a notoriously violent state-run reform school.
In Alabama, Michael Taylor is set to be put to death an hour after Guardado, at 6 p.m. local time. Death penalty opponents have said Taylor received ineffective counsel and too harsh a sentence for his age at the time of his crime. He was 19 when he robbed and killed an elderly couple he knew.
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