For the first time in 15 years, Indiana will execute a death row inmate – a man who was convicted a quarter-century ago of killing his brother and three other men.
Joseph Corcoran, now 49, has been on Indiana’s death row since 1999 and is set to be executed before sunrise Wednesday, December 18, at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
If the execution goes ahead as planned, it’ll be the state’s first since 2009. In that time, 13 executions were carried out in Indiana but those were initiated and performed by federal officials in 2020 and 2021 at a federal prison.
On July 26, 1997, Corcoran shot and killed his 30-year-old brother, James Corcoran, and three other men: Douglas A. Stillwell, 30, Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Robert Scott Turner, 32.
Corcoran, who was 22 years old at the time of the killings, allegedly woke up and heard the men talking about him, so in the heat of the moment, he grabbed his rifle and shot all four of them.
He was reportedly under stress because his sister was set to marry Turner, which would lead to him having to move out of the house, according to court records.
While Corcoran was serving time for the murders, he also reportedly bragged about killing his parents in 1992. He was charged in their killings but acquitted.
Attorneys for Corcoran, who exhausted his federal appeals in 2016, asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stop his execution but were denied. He then wrote an affidavit to the justices: “I am guilty of the crime I was convicted of, and accept the findings of all the appellate courts.”
Last week, his attorneys filed a petition in the US District Court of Northern Indiana asking the court to stop his execution and hold a hearing to decide if it would be unconstitutional because Corcoran has a serious mental illness.
They argued he has “severe and long standing paranoid schizophrenia” and his condition “manifests as auditory hallucinations and delusions that prison guards are torturing him with an ultrasound machine.”
“Indeed, he has volunteered to be executed, and is eager to be executed, because he believes his execution will give him relief from the perceived pain his delusions and hallucinations inflict upon him,” according to the filing.
But on Friday, the federal district court declined to intervene, prompting defense attorneys to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
The only people allowed to be present at the execution are the prison warden, those selected to assist in the execution, the prison physician, one additional physician, the condemned person’s spiritual adviser and the prison chaplain, according to Indiana code.
News media will not be allowed as Indiana is one of only two states, along with Wyoming, that do not allow members of the media to witness state executions, according to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center.
Corcoran’s sister, Kelly Ernst, told the Associated Press that she is against the death penalty and that her brother’s execution won’t solve or change anything.
Ernst, who lost a brother and her fiancé in the killings, declined to say whether she believes Corcoran killed their parents. She has only recently been back in touch with Corcoran, but said she believes it’s “fairly obvious” he has a serious mental illness. She does not plan to attend his execution.
“I kind of just feel that there’s no such thing as closure,” Ernst added. She does not plan to attend his execution. “I just don’t know what else to say. I haven’t slept in weeks.”
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