Indiana Executes First Death Row Inmate in 15 Years
In a significant legal event, Indiana conducted its first execution in 15 years on Wednesday, executing a man with a documented mental illness who was convicted of the 1997 murder of four individuals, including his brother. Joseph Corcoran, aged 49, was put to death by lethal injection and was declared dead at 12:44 AM (0644 GMT) at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, according to officials.
Corcoran’s final words were, “Not really. Let’s get this over with,” as reported by the Indiana Department of Correction. His legal team contended that executing him would breach constitutional protections due to his long-standing struggle with paranoid schizophrenia. They highlighted that Corcoran experienced persistent hallucinations and delusions, including unfounded beliefs that prison staff were torturing him with an ultrasound device. His attorneys argued that Corcoran’s severe mental illness continues to afflict him just as it did at the time of the 1997 killings.
The incident that led to the 1997 murders occurred during a tumultuous period for Corcoran, who was dealing with the stress of his sister’s impending marriage and his anticipated relocation from the shared home with her and his brother in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After overhearing an unsettling conversation involving his brother, James, who was 30 at the time, Corcoran took a rifle and fatally shot him along with three other men.
Prior to this case, Corcoran had faced legal issues in 1992 regarding the murder of his parents, but he was acquitted in those proceedings.
Corcoran’s execution marks the 24th in the U.S. this year, among which three used the controversial nitrogen gas method and the remainder employed lethal injections.
After a pause in executions since 2009 due to difficulties in sourcing the required drugs—following pharmaceutical companies’ reluctance to be linked to capital punishment—Indiana’s Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita announced earlier this summer that the state had secured the necessary drug, pentobarbital, thus paving the way for executions to resume beginning with Corcoran’s.
Despite his legal team’s efforts to halt the execution based on claims of Corcoran’s ongoing mental health struggles, he submitted a letter to the Indiana Supreme Court last month expressing his desire to cease legal proceedings. On Tuesday, his lawyers filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was ultimately denied.
Currently, the death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 states in the U.S., while six others—Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee—have moratoriums on capital punishment.
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