INDIANAPOLIS — The debate over the death penalty took center stage Sunday at the Indiana State Capitol building.
Dozens rallied in hopes of stopping the execution of a man on death row who is set to die by lethal injection next month.
The rally comes one month from the day Joseph Corcoran is set to be executed. Corcoran will be the first person executed in this state in 15 years. The Indiana Abolition Coalition is asking the governor to halt the execution, citing Corcoran's mental illness.
Joseph Corcoran was convicted in 1997 for killing his brother, James; 30-year-old Douglas Stillwell; 32-year-old Robert Turner and 30-year-old Timothy Bricker.
"When I was a pre-teen and a teenager, and people would get executed, I would get physically ill, and I had been against the death penalty because I couldn't see why people would kill each other," Rev. Crystal Walker said.
Walker's son was killed by gun violence. She says for a few weeks during her grief, she was angry.
"I was furious. I was angry. I thought, I wish the other person would die, and there was a retaliatory killing in my son's name. And when I thought about this, I said, I don't want any other parent, I didn't want anyone else to go through what I went through," Walker said.
She said in her eyes, the death penalty doesn't help families.
"Since it's not a deterrent, since it's very costly, since it does nothing for the victim's families, why do we have it?" Walker asked.
Corcoran's legal team had the following statement read at the rally:
"Joe's ultimate refusal to accept either a plea bargain to life to life without parole or a bench trial without the death penalty was a product of his mental illness. Joe's mental illness impeded the state's own efforts to avoid a death sentence altogether"
Corcaran's legal team has filed many appeals and has asked the courts to stop the execution, but in September, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled he would be executed before sunrise on Dec. 18 in Michigan City.