Indiana Supreme Court denies stay of execution; first state execution in 15 years moves forward

The Indiana Supreme Court has denied a request to stay the execution of man convicted in the killings of his brother and three other men.

In an order dated Thursday, the court also denied petitions by Joseph Corcoran's lawyers to argue claims on whether the scheduled Dec. 18 execution would violate his constitutional rights and whether he is competent to be executed.

The court said it would issue a written opinion on the ruling. The execution would be Indiana's first state execution in 15 years.

Corcoran, 49, was convicted in July 1997. His brother, James Corcoran, 30-year-old Douglas A. Stillwell, 32-year-old Robert Scott Turner and 30-year-old Timothy Bricker were shot to death.

Corcoran has been on death row since 1999. He exhausted his appeals in 2016. He had argued that the execution would be unconstitutional because he suffers from a mental illness and that the state had failed to disclose its execution protocol.

In a handwritten affidavit submitted last month to the state Supreme Court, Corcoran said he no longer wanted to litigate his case.

“I am guilty of the crime I was convicted of, and accept the findings of all the appellate courts,” he wrote. “The long drawn out appeal history has addressed all the issues I wished to appeal, such as the issue of competency. I do not wish to proceed with more and/or endless litigation.”

“I understand that if this Court rejects my counsel's petition the death warrant will be carried out,” Corcoran continued. “I will then be put to death for the heinous crime I committed. I understand that the execution will end my life.”

Joanna Green, a state public defender representing Corcoran, said at the time of the 1997 shooting of the four men in Fort Wayne, his “mental illness was percolating.”

“He was upstairs in a room he soundproofed,” she said. “He believed they were talking about him. He had a lot of guns, and he loaded one and went downstairs.”

Corcoran said in his confession to police that his intent was to intimidate the four men.

“And then he started shooting,” she said. “He put down his gun and told the neighbors to call 911, and then he sat on his front step and waited.”

The Supreme Court ruling is disappointing, said Green, adding that they plan to pursue the case in federal court hoping the execution will be paused there.

“We haven’t had an execution in Indiana for 15 years. Mr. Corcoran is seriously mentally ill,” she said. “I personally had hoped Indiana would not join the ranks of states who execute people who are seriously mentally ill. Part of his mental illness is that he masks his mental illness.”

His lawyers wrote in a filing Tuesday that Corcoran suffers from severe paranoid schizophrenia and that “the manifestations of that schizophrenia prevent him from rationally understanding that the State intends to execute him because a jury found him guilty of murder.”

“He does not understand why he is about to be executed, and there is no deterrence or retribution served,” the filing said. “His execution would serve no purpose other than to inflict unconstitutionally inhumane cruel and unusual punishment.”

Larry Komp, another public defender for Corcoran, said Friday that the 3-2 Supreme Court ruling “demonstrates this was a close call.”

“There is a lot of evidence that he is incompetent,” Komp said.

The Indiana Attorney General's office said Friday that Corcoran's execution date remains on schedule.

Indiana’s last state execution was in 2009, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, when Matthew Wrinkles was executed for the murdering his wife, her brother and sister-in-law.

The yearslong pause has been attributed to the unavailability of drugs used in lethal injections. Gov. Eric Holcomb said in June that the state Department of Correction had acquired the sedative pentobarbital, a drug multiple states use in lethal injections, and asked the Supreme Court to set a date for Corcoran’s execution.

____

Williams reported from West Bloomfield, Michigan.