The Department of Corrections wouldn’t have to go through the administrative regulations process to approve how it carries out the death penalty under a bill that passed the state Senate on Monday.
The regulations are mired in lawsuits, a state of affairs that GOP Sen. Stephen West of Paris said is gumming up the process and keeping the state from executing people. Senate Bill 251 would allow the Department of Corrections to create its policies through memos and internal policies with no identified oversight. It passed the Senate Monday with all Democrats and four Republicans opposing it. It will now head to the state House.
“These people on death row have had numerous chances at appeal and procedure and process, some over 20, 30-year period, maybe more,” West said. “It just gives the DOC an option. It doesn't even mandate that they do the internal policies. It says they may use internal policies.”
The death penalty has been on hold in Kentucky for years after the state Supreme Court found that the state had significant flaws in its execution protocols, including failing to sufficiently screen for mental and intellectual disabilities. Kentucky hasn’t executed a person since 2008.
GOP Attorney General Russell Coleman has tried to change that, pushing for clarification on the injunction that paused executions and to allow the execution of Ralph Baze, who killed two police officers. The top court is still considering the argument. Coleman and Beshear have gone back and forth over whether the governor has the ability to okay the execution as litigation continues over the state’s regulations.
Sen. Robin Webb, a Republican from Grayson, advocated against the bill, saying the General Assembly is trying to get in the way of the courts and pending litigation over the regulations.
“[We’re] entrusting an agency to come up with an internal protocol that has fumbled and dropped the ball in this area for years, much to the chagrin of the defendants, the defense lawyers, and everybody else that's frustrated with the system,” Webb said. “So we're just blindly handing this, potentially, protocol over to them.”
The process to amend or propose new administrative regulations can be lengthy. It requires a public comment period and must go before legislative committees that review regulations before going into effect, unless it’s an emergency.
West said he wants to break the cycle of the courts ruling some part of the regulation inadequate and then kicking it back through the regulatory process, only to repeat itself in a couple years.
“So we go through this revolving door, a merry-go-round of back and forth and back and forth, causing indeterminable delays in the process,” West said.
He said it doesn’t matter how a person feels about the death penalty — it’s the “law of the land.”
Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, a Democrat from Louisville, said it is important that the DOC be held accountable for its policies and need appropriate oversight to make sure that people aren’t executed by the state improperly.
“If there has been litigation over this issue, good. If there has been process that has allowed for comment and agency oversight, good,” Chambers Armstrong said. “This is a really important thing to get right. It is foundational to our system of justice and everything that rests on it.”
She also noted that the administrative regulations process allows for the legislature to weigh in and find policies they disagree with “deficient.”
“I think it's dangerously close to foregoing our obligation as the legislative body to give our authority to some unnamed person through an unnamed process with unnamed oversight, and so for that reason, I'll be voting no,” Chambers Armstrong said.
GOP Sen. Phillip Wheeler of Pikeville said that the administration under Beshear is “playing games” by not going forward with executions. Beshear said in a June 2025 letter he does not want to violate court orders as the DOC continues to amend its regulations.
Wheeler said the governor wants to “have it both ways.”
“Under Section 77 of the Constitution, the governor can commute a death sentence if he so chooses, but he doesn't want to face the ire of the families or the fury of the public,” Wheeler said. “The death penalty is still, in most polls, a very popular thing in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We need to have appropriate protocols in place.”
