The Court Said No. The Clock Says 12 Days. Now Jeffrey Weisheit's Fate Sits on Mike Braun's Desk.

Gov. Mike Braun, shown in his official U.S. Senate portrait, holds the final say on clemency for death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit. Photo: U.S. Senate Photographic Studio via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Twelve days. That is what is left on the calendar before Jeffrey Weisheit is scheduled to be put to death before sunrise at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, and as of Saturday evening the one Hoosier who can stop it, Gov. Mike Braun, had not announced a decision.

The courthouse door closed Thursday. In a one-page order signed by Chief Justice Loretta Rush, with all five justices concurring, the Indiana Supreme Court denied two emergency motions from Weisheit's lawyers: one asking the court to order him moved to a medical imaging facility, the other asking to push both the Nov. 5 execution and his clemency proceedings back 14 days so he could get brain scans.

The justices pointed out that Weisheit's own filing conceded clemency "is the exclusive and plenary power of the Governor," and that he cited no authority letting a court postpone or control that process. Then they handed the question right back to the executive branch: "If the Board or the Governor finds the medical evidence relevant, the executive branch maintains its own authority to transport him without a court order."

In plain English, the judiciary is done refereeing this one. What happens next is a political decision, made by an elected Republican governor, on the advice of a five-member board he oversees.

That board has not shown its hand. The Indiana Parole Board heard Weisheit himself on Oct. 16 and public testimony on Oct. 19, and its clemency hearings page still told the public to "Check back after 10/23" for the recommendation when the Hoosier Enquirer checked Saturday afternoon. The recommendation is nonbinding. Braun makes the final call, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.

Taxpayers already have money on the line. The Department of Correction has paid $275,000 for execution drugs, according to records obtained by WRTV's I-Team, and those drugs could expire if the governor commutes the sentence to life without parole.

None of this is about a close call on guilt. Weisheit was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing two children, ages 8 and 5, in a 2010 fire at his home near Evansville while their mother, his girlfriend at the time, was working an overnight shift, according to the Capital Chronicle. The Hoosier Enquirer is not naming the children. Tyler Banks of the Indiana Attorney General's Office told the board the killings were heinous and premeditated. "He burned the children alive," Banks said, as reported by WRTV.

Weisheit's attorneys argue severe mental illness and possible brain trauma drove what he did, and his relatives described a gentler man who struggled with depression and suicide attempts as a young man. His own father, a veteran police officer, told the board the death sentence was "just," even as he and Weisheit's mother said they could not bear to see it carried out. The State's answer to the brain-scan push was simple: that question was already litigated.

The children's family is divided. Their father has supported clemency. Their mother has not. Speaking virtually and through tears at the Oct. 19 hearing, she asked the board to uphold the sentence. "Nothing about an abuser's twisted narrative changes the horror of what was done," she said, WRTV reported.

Two possible legal off-ramps remain on paper. Weisheit's lawyers have said they may seek a stay tied to a challenge to Indiana's execution method, and another tied to a request to reopen post-conviction proceedings. Neither had been filed as of Thursday's order. A federal judge, Sarah Evans Barker, had already ruled Oct. 7 that she lacked authority to force state officials to transport him for scans, and the Supreme Court's docket shows the defense's last reply ran past the page limit without permission, the Capital Chronicle noted.

Braun's record points one direction. The Parole Board recommended against clemency for Benjamin Ritchie in 2025 and Braun let that execution go forward, and he also denied Roy Lee Ward's request, the Evansville Courier & Press reported. The Supreme Court set Weisheit's date back on Aug. 28, unanimously.

Sixteen years, a jury, a death sentence, round after round of appeals, and a unanimous high court have brought this case to a single desk on the second floor of the Statehouse. Hoosiers who believe a sentence handed down by a jury ought to mean something will be watching what lands on it, and so will the woman who buried two children in 2010.

Photo: Official portrait of Mike Braun by the U.S. Senate Photographic Studio, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.