INDIANAPOLIS — Lawyers for Joseph Corcoran are asking the Indiana Supreme Court to prevent his execution.
Indiana hasn't executed a prisoner since 2009, but recently acquired the drug needed to carry out the death penalty. Corcoran could be the first death row inmate executed with it. The state has requested the Indiana Supreme Court to set an execution date for him.
Corcoran was convicted in the July 1997 killings of his brother, James Corcoran; along with Douglas A. Stillwell; Robert Scott Turner; and Timothy G. Bricker. He allegedly killed the men with a semiautomatic rifle in the living room of the home he shared with his brother and sister because he couldn’t stand to hear them talking about him.
Corcoran also suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.
According to filings by his lawyers, Corcoran believes his prison guards are torturing him with 'ultra-sonic weapons', he has conversations with people who aren't there and believes he has a speech impediment that he doesn't have.
There is no Indiana law saying mentally ill people can't be executed if convicted of a death penalty crime, but that isn't true in other states.
"This tragedy had its roots in mental illness," said Corcoran's lawyers in a statement. "Mr. Corcoran is a person with a serious mental illness. Ohio and Kentucky, the only other two death penalty states around Indiana, have taken the pro-life position of not executing those people suffering from serious mental illnesses. Our filing simply suggests Indiana should consider doing the same."
According to our partners at the Indiana Capital Chronicle, an Ohio statute that took effect in early 2021, for example, prohibits the death penalty for defendants who have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and whose mental illness “significantly impaired the person’s capacity to exercise rational judgment in relation to the person’s conduct.”
Kentucky followed in early 2022 with a law exempting offenders with “active symptoms and a documented history, including a diagnosis” from the death penalty. Corcoran’s counsel emphasized that one of the listed mental illnesses in Kentucky is schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.
The lawyers also brought up the recent trial of Elliahs Dorsey, who murdered IMPD Officer Breann Leath. The Marion County Prosecutor dropped his request for the death sentence, saying:
"...after thoroughly reviewing the psychiatric evaluations from the two court-appointed doctors. The United States Constitution forbids the execution of mentally ill defendants. Based on all the available evidence, the State has determined that it is constitutionally prohibited from seeking the death penalty."
This is not the first legal challenge in Corcoran's case.
Several courts, including the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled on the case.
The judge who sentenced Corcoran to death rewrote her sentencing order in 2000, explaining how she came to her decision and reaffirming the sentence.
Corcoran is one of eight men on Indiana's death row. If the Indiana Supreme Court rules he can't be executed, the man next up may be Benjamin Ritchie, who shot and killed Beech Grove Police Officer Bill Toney.
You can read the state's motion to resume executions by clicking here.