Goff, J.
Plaintiff challenges the Department of Correction’s change to Indiana’s lethal injection protocol, arguing the combination of drugs used in executions is a substantive rule that must be promulgated pursuant to the Administrative Rules and Procedures Act. We disagree. Because the Department’s decision to add Brevital to the lethal injection cocktail does not carry the effect of law—that is, the change does not impose standards regulating Ward’s conduct—we hold the new three-drug protocol is not a rule and, therefore, not subject to the Administrative Rules and Procedures Act.
….
Weaving together this federal and state precedent, we observe a common thread—a rule carrying the effect of law primarily affects individual rights and obligations by setting binding standards of conduct for persons subject to its authority. This “effect of law” concept manifests in everyday situations where Hoosiers must conform their conduct to meet agency standards. To be sure, when an agency standard requires citizens to alter their behavior—i.e., when it regulates their conduct—it necessarily affects the citizens’ rights or obligations because it compels them to do something they would not do otherwise or face legal consequences for noncompliance. And so that agency standard carries the effect of law. We therefore settle on the following summation of the phrase “effect of law” for Indiana jurisprudence: An agency regulation carries the effect of law when it prescribes binding standards of conduct for persons subject to agency authority.
….
…No exhibit prescribes binding standards of conduct that condemned offenders, like Ward, must follow to vindicate a substantive right. Unlike the Villegas plaintiffs or the American Trucking companies, Ward is not required to alter his conduct in any way. He is not faced with a choice of conforming his conduct to Department standards or foregoing a substantive right—his fate remains unaltered. Rather, the exhibits outline what Department personnel must do. They relate to the Department’s internal policies and procedures that bind Department personnel and no one else. We therefore conclude that the Department’s lethal injection protocol, as evidenced by these exhibits, does not carry the effect of law. Consequently, we hold the Department’s lethal injection procedures do not constitute rules under Section 4-22-2-3(b) and are exempt from ARPA’s rulemaking strictures. Because we resolve Ward’s claims on this narrow ground, we decline to address the Defendant’s alternative, broader argument that the Department is free to decide whether to follow ARPA when promulgating rules governing executions by lethal injection.
We pause briefly to note that Ward does not raise an Eighth Amendment cruel-and-unusual-punishment argument here. His Indiana and federal constitutional claims cited only due process violations, which hinged upon whether the Department’s lethal injection protocol amounted to a rule subject to ARPA. Since we hold the Department protocol does not carry the effect of law and therefore is not a rule subject to ARPA, his constitutional claims necessarily fail.
Conclusion For these reasons, we affirm the trial court’s judgment dismissing Ward’s complaint.
Rush, C.J., and David, Massa, and Slaughter, JJ., concur.