Before sunrise on Wednesday, Indiana will carry out its first execution since 2009, with a large portion of the procedure being kept secret from the public.
The execution of Joseph Corcoran, 49, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 1997 murders of his brother and three other men, including Corcoran’s sister’s fiancé, will not be open to media witnesses, according to state law.
After a federal appeals court on Monday concurred with a federal judge who found the convicted man competent to be executed, his legal team proceeded to petition the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, on Tuesday to stop the execution.
Deputy Public Defender Joanna Green wrote in an email on Tuesday, “We are asking Gov. [Eric] Holcomb to grant clemency to Joe, a seriously mentally ill man, if the courts do not stay the execution.”
According to the Indiana Department of Corrections, Corcoran asked for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his final dinner on Tuesday night. If there isn’t a last-minute reprieve, his execution might take place Wednesday between midnight and daybreak.
According to Corcoran’s attorneys, he has “severe and longstanding paranoid schizophrenia,” which is supported by his self-published jail novels in which he talks of being under “ultrasonic surveillance.” The attorneys further contend that he has been unable to appropriately pursue post-conviction remedy due to his mental state.
U.S. District Judge John Lee acknowledged in a dissenting opinion for the appeals court that “Corcoran is entitled to have at least one court assess his competency to be executed, given his long, undisputed history of severe mental illness and the pervasiveness of his continuing delusions, as evidenced by his book and recent medical records.”
Anti-death penalty organizations have recently brought letters to Holcomb’s office pleading with him to exercise his clemency powers and staged protests at the State Capitol.
In reference to Christmas, David Frank, president of the Indiana Abolition Coalition, stated that “the state in secret, under cover of darkness plans to take the life of Mr. Corcoran” one week before we welcome the light of the Prince of Peace into the world.
A request for comment on Tuesday was not immediately answered by Holcomb’s office. Holcomban stated in June that the state had acquired pentobarbital, a sedative used in fatal injections, following “years of effort.”
“Accordingly, I am fulfilling my duties as governor to follow the law and move forward appropriately in this matter,” Holcomb stated.
A moratorium on the death sentence has been imposed in several states due to difficulties obtaining lethal injection medications. However, Utah this year carried out its first execution in 14 years, South Carolina its first in 13 years, and Idaho attempted to carry out its first execution in 12 years but stopped when prison officials couldn’t find a healthy vein.
According to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, only Indiana and Wyoming bar media witnesses from the 27 states that still permit the death penalty.
Robert Gevers, the initial prosecutor in Corcoran’s case, is coming out against the death penalty in part because of the secrecy surrounding Indiana’s execution process and the lack of public attention.
Gevers, who is currently a defense attorney and was the district attorney for Allen County for two terms, said his opinions on the death sentence started to change in 2011, more than ten years after Corcoran’s trial.
Even though he understands why some prosecutors feel it is crucial to provide victims’ loved ones that option for retribution in the quest of justice, he stated that if he were involved in the case today, he would not seek a death sentence.
Gevers stated, “I’ve seen it from both sides,” as he grappled with the moral dilemma. yet, “I began to see that sparing an individual’s life is nothing more than righteous grace and nothing less than that.”
Corcoran’s sister Kelly Ernst, whose fianc was one of the victims, told The Associated Press that she now thinks the death penalty should be abolished and that she finds it distressing that the state chose to put her brother to death just one week before Christmas.
“My sister and I, our birthdays are in December,” stated Ernst. It seems like it will destroy Christmas for the rest of our lives, really. It feels just like that.
In 1997, at the age of 22, Corcoran shot and killed his 30-year-old brother, James Corcoran, in their Fort Wayne home. Ernst’s fiancé, Robert Scott Turner, age 32, and his pals, Douglas Stillwell and Timothy Bricker, each 30 years old, were also slain.
Jurors deemed insufficient evidence to condemn Joseph Corcoran five years prior for the killings of his parents, Jack and Kathryn Corcoran. Prosecutors claim that Corcoran killed his brother and the other men while they were watching television because he thought they were discussing his possible role in the death of his parents.
Although she was at home when the shootings occurred, Corcoran’s niece, who was seven at the time, was uninjured.
During his trial, there had been discussion about his mental health.
His attorneys emphasized that Corcoran can be held safely and that there have been no incident reports since his 2006 incarceration when they petitioned Holcomb last week to reduce his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of release.
“Although Joe suffers from delusions, his delusions purely result in him believing he is being tormented and publicly embarrassed,” they stated. “They have not resulted in any violent acts towards others during incarceration.”
The execution Penalty Information Center reports that seven more prisoners are still on Indiana’s execution row.
Supporters of Corcoran think Holcomb will at least provide a reprieve until the dispute is heard, as a Republican state senator submitted legislation this month that would remove the death penalty. Like Holcomb, Republican governor-elect Mike Braun has stated that he is in favor of legislative discussion on the matter.
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