Man to be killed in Indiana’s first execution in 15 years: NPR

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. – An Indiana man convicted of the 1997 murders of his brother and three other men was set to receive a lethal injection early Wednesday in the state’s first execution in 15 years, with no independent witness present under state law . information about the death penalty.

Joseph Corcoran, 49, has been on death row since 1999, the year he was convicted in the shootings of his brother, James Corcoran, 30; his sister’s fiancé, Robert Scott Turner, 32; and two other men: Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell, 30.

Barring intervention by Gov. Eric Holcomb, Corcoran is scheduled to be executed before sunrise Wednesday at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

Holcomb’s office did not immediately respond to an email sent late Tuesday by The Associated Press asking if he could commute Corcoran’s death sentence.

Holcomb recently said he would let the legal process play out before deciding whether to intervene. And late Tuesday, Corcoran’s options with the courts ended when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers’ request to stay his execution.

Last summer, the governor announced the resumption of state executions after a year-long hiatus marked by a nationwide shortage of lethal injections.

Indiana and Wyoming are the only two states that do not allow members of the media to attend state executions, according to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Indiana has provided few details about the process. Prison officials provided only pictures of the execution chamber, which looks like a sparse operating room with a gurney, bright fluorescent lights and an adjacent viewing room.

Corcoran’s lawyers have fought the death penalty for years, arguing that he is severely mentally ill, affecting his ability to understand and make decisions. Corcoran exhausted his federal appeals in 2016, and this month his lawyers asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stay his execution, but the request was denied.

Corcoran’s lawyers asked the U.S. District Court in Northern Indiana last week to halt his execution and hold a hearing to determine whether it would be unconstitutional because Corcoran has a serious mental illness. The court declined to intervene Friday, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did the same Tuesday.

Corcoran’s lawyers then asked the US Supreme Court to review his case and issue an emergency order halting his execution, but the high court denied their request for a stay.

According to court records, before Corcoran shot the men in July 1997, he was stressed because his sister’s upcoming marriage to Turner would necessitate moving out of the Fort Wayne home he shared with her and his brother.

Corcoran awoke to hearing his brother and others downstairs talking about him, loaded his rifle and then shot all four, records show. While incarcerated, Corcoran reportedly bragged about fatally shooting his parents in 1992 in northern Indiana’s Steuben County. He was accused of their murder, but acquitted.

Indiana’s last state execution was in 2009, when Matthew Wrinkles was executed for killing his wife, her brother and sister-in-law in 1994.

Since then, 13 executions have been carried out in Indiana, but they were initiated and carried out by federal officials in 2020 and 2021 at a federal prison in Terre Haute.

State officials have said they could not go ahead with the executions because a combination of drugs used for lethal injections had become unavailable.

For years there has been a nationwide shortage because pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell their products for that purpose. That has pushed states, including Indiana, to turn to compounding pharmacies, which make drugs specifically for a client. Some use more readily available drugs such as the sedatives pentobarbital or midazolam — both of which, critics say, can cause intense pain.

Indiana planned to use pentobarbital to execute Corcoran and, like many states, refuses to disclose the source of the drugs. When asked for details, the Indiana Department of Correction referred The Associated Press to a state law that labeled the source of lethal injection drugs confidential.

Religious groups, disability rights advocates and others have opposed execution. About a dozen people, some holding candles, held a vigil late Tuesday to pray outside the prison, which is surrounded by barbed wire fences in a residential area about 90 kilometers east of Chicago.

“We can build a society without giving state authorities the right to execute their own citizens,” said Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary, who led the prayers.

Other death penalty opponents also demonstrated outside the prison Tuesday night, some with signs that read “Execution Is Not The Solution” and “Remember The Victims But Not With More Killing.”

“There is no need and no benefit to this execution. It’s all been shown,” said Abraham Borowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, his organization that opposes any execution in the United States

Jail officials said in a brief statement Tuesday night that Corcoran “swallowed Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”

Corcoran said goodbye to relatives late Tuesday, including his wife, Tahina Corcoran, who told reporters outside the jail that they discussed their faith and their memories, including going to high school together. She repeated her plea to Indiana’s governor to commute her husband’s death sentence.

Tahina Corcoran said her husband is “very mentally ill” and she doesn’t think he fully understands what’s happening to him.

“He’s in shock. He doesn’t understand,” she said.

One of Corcoran’s sisters, Kelly Ernst, who lost both a brother and her fiance in the 1997 shootings, said she believes the death penalty should be abolished and that executing her brother won’t solve anything.

“I’m at a loss for words. I’m just really upset that they’re doing this so close to Christmas,” she said. “My sister and I, our birthdays are in December. I mean, it just feels like it’s going to ruin Christmas for the rest of our lives.”