WKYT Investigates | Justice: Delivered, delayed or denied?

STANTON, Ky. (WKYT) - A blue light and a flag inside the Powell County Sheriff’s Office honor the brotherhood and sisterhood of those who serve and protect their communities.

A calendar from 1992 and another framed photo along the same wall serve as somber reminders of two lives taken from them in the line of duty.

And beyond that still lingers the reality of loved ones’ lives forever changed because of it.

“This didn’t have to happen,” Steven Bennett said, tears beginning to fall as he sat inside a conference room just a few doors down from the sheriff’s office. “It just didn’t have to happen.”

It has been 31 years since Sheriff Steve Lynn Bennett and Deputy Arthur Clay Briscoe died in the line of duty on January 30, 1992.

Today, their surviving loved ones say they are frustrated that the man convicted of killing them - Ralph Stevens Baze Jr. - is still alive and being held in prison despite being sentenced to death in 1994.

Baze, who has been at the center of multiple efforts to challenge Kentucky’s death penalty protocols, may be more likely to die on death row than in the execution chamber.

Public opinion and more states are turning against the death penalty.

Right now it is still on the books in Kentucky, but executions have been on hold in the commonwealth for more than a decade, and a bipartisan bill filed in Frankfort could end it for good.

With 26 inmates currently sitting on death row, opinions differ as to whether justice is being delivered, delayed or denied.

Steven Bennett carries his father’s name, as well as the psychological weight of such a substantial loss - he has battled depression, he says, but has dedicated his life to his late father - yet, sadly, there is not much that he remembers beyond others’ stories of him.

“Oh, Steve Bennett was a cornerstone,” Steven Bennett said. “He was a patriarch. He was a pillar. He was the gold standard of law enforcement.”

Bennett wasn’t even four years old when his father - Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett - was gunned down in 1992 while trying to serve a warrant alongside Deputy Arthur Briscoe.

[RELATED COVERAGE | Family of murdered Powell Co. officer waiting for justice 25 years later (2017)]

“He didn’t know that when he left the house that morning that he wasn’t going to come home to me and my mother,” Bennett said.

Now more than three decades later, this community in many ways is still haunted by what happened on that January day to Sheriff Bennett and Deputy Briscoe.

“I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what was going through his mind,” said Ed Drake.

Drake was a close friend of Briscoe’s. They knew each other from the time they were kids. As adults, the two would often meet a couple of times a week to golf together.

“I can tell you that during the past 30 years I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about not necessarily ‘Deputy’ Briscoe, but my friend Arthur Briscoe,” he said, “hunkered down behind his police cruiser, shooting for his life until he ran out of ammunition.”

Ralph Baze was arrested January 30, 1992, surrendering to police at a home in Estill County after an eight-hour manhunt through the woods. He shot Sheriff Bennett and Deputy Briscoe when they showed up at his home in rural Powell County to serve out-of-state warrants.

Baze has admitted to shooting the two lawmen, but claimed self-defense. He was charged with two counts of murder, and in 1994 was tried in Rowan County, convicted and sentenced to die.

Years passed as Baze filed appeals and other challenges to his case.

An execution date was scheduled for September 25, 2007 - but it was stayed due to a challenge of Kentucky’s lethal injection protocols, which the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear.

Two weeks before his scheduled execution in 2007, Baze spoke with WKYT from inside Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, vowing to fight to stay alive until he takes his last breath.

“It just comes back down to: They have held me illegally. They convicted me illegally. And they’re trying to murder me illegally,” he said at the time.

Kentucky is one of 27 states that still has the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a national non-profit organization focused on analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment.

Fifteen of those states, however, have not carried out an execution in at least 10 years. The last time Kentucky carried one out was 2008, with the execution of Marco Allen Chapman.

In that time, support for the death penalty has continued to decline across the country. Public support for it peaked in 1994, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Two different national polls published in the fall found that support remains near a 50-year low, despite the perception that crime has increased.

[MORE DETAILS | Kentucky’s death penalty profile]

Two states recently paused executions in efforts to try to address problems. Last month, Arizona’s attorney general put them on hold after the governor ordered a review of the state’s protocols. In November, Alabama’s governor ordered a “top-to-bottom” review after a third failed lethal injection.

Last year, a statistical study of the death penalty in Kentucky found racial and geographic disparities in its application, among other flaws.

Today, executions in Kentucky remain on hold because of court orders. In 2010 Franklin Circuit Court Judge Philip Shepherd ordered a stay of executions, and in 2019 a circuit court order from Judge Shepherd struck down the state’s protocols after challenges from Baze and other death row inmates.

The court over the years has identified issues with the drugs Kentucky has used for lethal injection and the protocols for ensuring those with intellectual disabilities are not put to death.

As part of a 2020 settlement agreement from the most recent litigation, the Department of Corrections formed a work group to review and amend the administrative regulations regarding the death penalty, a D.O.C. spokesperson told WKYT’s Garrett Wymer.

The Department of Corrections follows all statutes, regulations and court orders. In 2010 a judge ordered a stay of executions in Kentucky. Pursuant to the settlement agreement entered on July 2, 2020 in the most recent litigation, DOC has formed a work group to review and amend the administrative regulations regarding the death penalty. Any regulatory changes will be filed with LRC for final action by the General Assembly.

Any regulatory changes would be filed with the Legislative Research Commission for final action by the General Assembly.

For the state to resume carrying out death sentences, legal officials say, the ruling that has halted state executions would have to be lifted either by Judge Shepherd or by an appellate court. Litigation will not resume until the regulations are amended.

It is unclear when the process of amending those regulations could be completed.

A spokesperson for Gov. Andy Beshear did not respond to a request for comment by WKYT Investigates, asking if the governor has had any contact with the D.O.C. about their amending the regulations, if he believes D.O.C. is working in a timely manner to amend the regulations, or if he has outlined a timetable for when he believes the process should be completed.

[SEE MORE | WKYT Investigates]

Last year, in response to questions about the status of the death penalty, Gov. Beshear mentioned the court order currently putting it on hold.

“There’s currently an injunction from a circuit court that prevents it from being used,” Gov. Andy Beshear said at the time, as reported by LINK nky. “Certainly, both the Attorney General’s Office and the Justice cabinet are part of that case trying to work through the concerns that the judge has, but right now, based on a federal order, executions cannot occur in Kentucky.”

In 2016, then-Attorney General Andy Beshear told WDRB in Louisville that he is a “strong proponent of the death penalty.”

A spokesperson for Attorney General Daniel Cameron said this week that their office is not aware of any attempt by the D.O.C. to contact them regarding amending the death penalty regulations.

Our General Assembly has decided that the death penalty is appropriate for Kentucky’s most violent criminals. Since taking office, Attorney General Cameron has vigorously defended lawfully imposed death sentences for Kentucky’s notorious criminals in many cases, including in the U.S. Supreme Court. Our office is not aware of an attempt by the Department of Corrections to contact the Attorney General’s Office regarding amending the death penalty regulations.

“We need to proceed,” state Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, told WKYT’s Garrett Wymer.

During a committee meeting last fall, Sen. Schickel asked the D.O.C. for an update on where the state’s protocols stand. He says he still has not received one.

While Sen. Schickel, a retired law enforcement officer, supports the death penalty, he said he knows public opinion is changing. However, he believes this debate should be different than the debate over whether or not the death penalty is appropriate.

“This really isn’t about polling. This really isn’t about future laws,” he said. “This is about enforcing the laws that are currently on the books that every public official is sworn to uphold.”

Meanwhile, a bipartisan bill filed in Frankfort would abolish the death penalty altogether.

Senate Bill 45 is sponsored by Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, and Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville.

[READ MORE | Check out the latest status of SB 45]

“I think it’s worth a societal discussion at the very least,” Sen. Neal, the Minority Floor Leader, told WKYT’s Garrett Wymer.

Sen. Neal said he understands how victims’ families can feel what they feel, but he believes there are systemic and societal issues with the death penalty: its practicality; its finality, with the possibility of errors and arbitrariness; its costs that come with years of appeals and challenges; and whether one’s beliefs and morals can justify taking a life.

And he believes that even without it, justice can still be served.

“I have no sympathy for someone who goes out and disregards someone else’s right to life in the sense of living their life in that space, and they disregard that. There’s no sympathy there,” said Sen. Neal, who said that he had supported the death penalty at one point. “I think the issue is bigger than that individual. I think it is a larger societal issue that also has personal ramifications depending on who you are.”

The state has not issued a new death sentence since 2015, one analysis found.

If SB 45 becomes law, Baze and the 25 others on death row with him would instead serve sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole - much like they currently are, as executions remain on hold.

The corrections impact statement for SB 45 projects a “minimal to moderate” fiscal impact, meaning less than $1 million, if the state were to abolish the death penalty.

“Given that the state has conducted only three executions since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976,” reads the corrections impact statement, “a shift to life sentence for offenders who are currently under a sentence of death is not likely to substantially impact the length of time individuals with a capital conviction are incarcerated.”

Male inmates with a sentence of death are housed at Kentucky State Penitentiary, which has an average annual incarceration cost of $65,378.02 per inmate, according to the corrections impact statement. Female inmates sentenced to death are housed at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Pewee Valley, at an annual cost of $38,887.47, the analysis says.

For many who knew and loved Sheriff Bennett and Deputy Briscoe, three decades without their loved ones and years of delays - all while the convicted killer is still in prison - has served only to deny them the justice they believe they were promised by a judge and jury.

“Thirty years-plus on death row isn’t the life I would envision for myself,” said Ed Drake, the late Deputy Briscoe’s long-time friend. “So [Baze] is being punished. But justice to me still hasn’t been carried out, and won’t be until there’s an execution date set.”

Outside the Powell County Courthouse, monuments honor the city and county law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty.

“There’s five monuments there,” Judge-Executive Eddie Barnes said, looking at each of them on a cold winter day. “And that’s five too many.”

Barnes worked in law enforcement himself for much of his career. He even served under Sheriff Bennett - and trained and was replaced by Deputy Briscoe when he decided to leave the sheriff’s office.

“My personal opinion - this is Eddie’s opinion - [Baze] has exhausted all appeals,” Barnes said. “They’ve found him guilty. I think they need to carry out the sentence.”

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