Before sunrise on Wednesday, Indiana carried out its first execution since 2009, with a large portion of the procedure being kept secret from the public.
No media representatives will be permitted to witness the execution of Joseph Corcoran, 49, who was executed by lethal injection for the 1997 murders of his brother and three other men, including Corcoran’s sister’s fiancé, 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.
According to a statement from the Indiana Department of Correction, Corcoran was declared dead at 12:44 a.m. CT, and the execution procedure started just after midnight CT.
“Not really,” was his final statement. “Let’s finish this up,” the department stated.
According to the department, 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 had “severe and longstanding paranoid schizophrenia,” which he documented in self-published jail publications where he talked 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.
In an email on Tuesday, Deputy Public Defender Joanna Green stated, “We are requesting that Gov. [Eric] Holcomb grant clemency to Joe, a seriously mentally ill man, if the courts do not stay the execution.”
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 said.
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, has opposed the death sentence in part because of the secrecy surrounding Indiana’s execution process and the absence 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.
He said he would not pursue a death sentence if he were involved in the case today, although he understands why some prosecutors believe it is important to give victims’ loved ones that option for punishment in the pursuit of justice.
“I’ve seen it from both sides,” Gevers said, as he struggled morally with the issue. yet, “I began to see that sparing an individual’s life is nothing more than righteous grace and nothing less than that.”
Kelly Ernst, a sister of Corcoran’s whose fianc was among the victims,told The Associated Pressthat she now believes the death penalty should be abolished and that the state’s decision to execute her brother a week before Christmas is upsetting.
“My sister and I, our birthdays are in December,” stated Ernst. “I mean, it just feels like it’s going to ruin Christmas for the rest of our lives. That’s just what it feels like.”
Corcoran was 22 in 1997 when he fatally shot his brother, James Corcoran, 30, in the home they shared in Fort Wayne. Also killed were Robert Scott Turner, 32, who was Ernst’s fianc , and friends Douglas Stillwell and Timothy Bricker, both 30.
Five years earlier, Joseph Corcoran was acquitted in the murders of his parents, Jack and Kathryn Corcoran, after jurors found not enough evidence to convict. According to prosecutors, Corcoran killed his brother and the other men as they were watching TV after he believed they were talking about his suspected involvement in his parents’ death.
Corcoran’s then-7-year-old niece was also home at the time of the shootings but was unharmed.
His mental state had been debated amid his trial.
In a petition last week asking Holcomb to commute Corcoran’s death sentence to life in prison without parole, his lawyers stressed that he can be housed safely and has not had any incident reports while he has been incarcerated since 2006.
“Although Joe suffers from delusions, his delusions purely result in him believing he is being tormented and publicly embarrassed,” they wrote. “They have not resulted in any violent acts towards others during incarceration.”
Seven other inmates remain on Indiana’s death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
A Republican state lawmaker filed legislation this month that would repeal the death penalty, and Corcoran’s supporters hope Holcomb would at least grant a reprieve until debate could be heard. Gov.-elect Mike Braun, a Republican, like Holcomb,has said he supportslegislative debate on the issue.
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