An Indiana man convicted of killing 4 individuals together with his brother and his sister’s fiancé a long time in the past was put to dying Wednesday, marking the state’s first execution in 15 years.
Joseph Corcoran, 49, was pronounced lifeless at 12:44 a.m. CST on the Indiana State Jail in Michigan Metropolis, Indiana, the Indiana Division of Correction mentioned in an announcement.
Corcoran was scheduled to be executed with the highly effective sedative pentobarbital, however the state company’s assertion didn’t point out that drug.
Corcoran’s execution was the twenty fourth within the US this yr.
He was convicted within the July 1997 shootings of his brother, 30-year-old James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé, 32-year-old Robert Scott Turner, and two different males, Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell, 30.
In keeping with court docket data, earlier than Corcoran fatally shot the 4 victims he was underneath stress as a result of the forthcoming marriage of his sister to Turner would necessitate transferring out of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, dwelling he shared along with his brother and sister.
Whereas jailed for these killings, Corcoran reportedly bragged about fatally capturing his dad and mom in 1992 in northern Indiana’s Steuben County.
He was charged of their killings however acquitted.
Final summer season, Gov. Eric Holcomb introduced plans to renew state executions following a yearslong hiatus marked by a shortage of deadly injection medicine nationwide.
The state offered restricted particulars in regards to the execution course of, and no media witnesses have been permitted underneath state legislation.
Nonetheless, Corcoran selected a reporter for the Indiana Capital Chronicle as one among his witnesses, the Indiana politics web site reported.
Indiana and Wyoming are the one two states that don’t permit members of the media to witness state executions, in accordance with a current report by the Dying Penalty Info Heart.
Corcoran’s attorneys had fought his dying penalty sentence for years, arguing he was severely mentally ailing, which affected his capability to know and make choices.
This month his attorneys requested the Indiana Supreme Court docket to cease his execution however the request was denied.
Corcoran exhausted his federal appeals in 2016.
However his attorneys requested the US District Court docket of Northern Indiana final week to cease his execution and maintain a listening to to determine if it could be unconstitutional as a result of Corcoran has a critical psychological sickness.
The court docket declined to intervene Friday, and the US Court docket of Appeals for the seventh Circuit did the identical Tuesday.
Corcoran’s attorneys then requested the US Supreme Court docket to challenge an emergency order halting his execution, however the excessive court docket denied their request for a keep late Tuesday, ending Corcoran’s choices with the courts.
Protection legal professional Larry Komp mentioned that he was dissatisfied with the excessive court docket’s choice, including that the query of Corcoran’s psychological well being was not correctly evaluated.
“There has never been a hearing to determine whether is he competent to be executed,” Komp mentioned in an announcement to The Related Press. “It is an absolute failure for the rule of law to have an execution when the law and proper processes were not followed.”
Corcoran’s sole remaining hope then turned Holcomb, who might have commuted Corcoran’s dying sentence. However that commutation by no means got here and the execution proceeded as scheduled.
At midnight, a gaggle of activists who oppose the dying penalty started singing “Amazing Grace.”
Holcomb’s workplace launched an announcement early Wednesday following Corcoran’s execution.
“Joseph Corcoran’s case has been reviewed repeatedly over the last 25 years – including 7 times by the Indiana Supreme Court and 3 times by the US Supreme Court, the most recent of which was tonight. His sentence has never been overturned and was carried out as ordered by the court,” Holcomb mentioned within the assertion.
Indiana’s final state execution was in 2009 when Matthew Wrinkles was put to dying for killing his spouse, her brother and sister-in-law in 1994.
Since then, 13 executions have been carried out in Indiana however these have been initiated and carried out by federal officers in 2020 and 2021 at a federal jail in Terre Haute.
State officers have mentioned they couldn’t proceed executions as a result of a mix of medication utilized in deadly injections had turn into unavailable.
For years, there was a scarcity throughout the nation as a result of pharmaceutical corporations have refused to promote their merchandise for that function.
That’s pushed states, together with Indiana, to show to compounding pharmacies, which manufacture medicine particularly for a consumer. Some use extra accessible medicine such because the sedatives pentobarbital or midazolam, each of which, critics say, may cause intense ache.
Spiritual teams, incapacity rights advocates and others have opposed his execution.
A couple of dozen individuals, some holding candles, held a vigil late Tuesday to wish exterior the jail, which is surrounded by barbed wire fences in a residential space about 60 miles east of Chicago.
“We can build a society without giving governmental authorities the right to execute their own citizens,” mentioned Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary, who led the prayers.
Different dying penalty opponents additionally demonstrated exterior the jail Tuesday evening, some holding indicators that learn “Execution Is Not The Solution” and “Remember The Victims But Not With More Killing.”
“There is no need and no benefit from this execution. It’s all show,” mentioned Abraham Borowitz, director of Dying Penalty Motion, his group that protests each execution within the US
Jail officers mentioned in a short assertion Tuesday night that Corcoran “requested Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”
Corcoran mentioned farewell late Tuesday to family members, together with his spouse, Tahina Corcoran, who informed reporters exterior the jail that they mentioned their religion and their reminiscences, together with attending highschool collectively.
She reiterated her request for Indiana’s governor to commute her husband’s dying sentence.
Tahina Corcoran mentioned her husband was “very mentally ill” and he or she didn’t suppose he totally grasped what was occurring to him.
“He is in shock. He doesn’t understand,” she mentioned.
