The Indiana Supreme Court set an execution date of Dec. 18 for Joseph Corcoran.
Corcoran was convicted by an Allen Superior Court jury in 1999 of the murders of his brother James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé Robert Scott Turner, and two of their friends: Timothy Bricker and Douglas Stillwell.
He was sentenced to death, and has been on Indiana’s death row ever since.
Corcoran’s case traveled through state and federal appeals courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, on multiple occasions, and the death sentence was upheld nearly a decade ago, but no execution date was ever set.
At issue largely is whether his significant mental illness has been properly taken into consideration in his capital sentence. Multiple doctors have found that he suffers from schizophrenia, with symptoms including delusions and hallucinations.
In June, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the state to set an execution date for the now 49-year-old man.
Those who knew Corcoran said during court proceedings that he had shown evidence of hallucinations and delusions in the early 1990s, according to court documents. And among those delusions recorded in documents are that prison staff is torturing him with an ultrasound machine. In 2003, three mental health experts testified he had not been competent to waive his appeals, which he had done at one point during the years after his sentencing.
Rokita argued that the matter of Corcoran’s mental illness has been settled and wants a date set to execute him with little delay.
"Direct appellate review of Corcoran's sentence concluded two decades ago," Rokita wrote in his reply to Corcoran's attorneys earlier this summer. "(T)he proceeding before this Court is not a criminal appeal in which the appropriateness of his sentence is up for consideration."
Corcoran’s attorneys want Indiana’s Supreme Court to reconsider his death sentence in light of his persistent mental illness, which they say has declined significantly since his sentencing.
"A national consensus has emerged against executing the severely mentally ill," wrote Corcoran's public defenders. "Every other contiguous death penalty state in this area of the Midwest has banned the death penalty for the seriously mentally ill."
But in an order issued Wednesday, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that no new evidence or issues have been raised and set the date for Corcoran to be put to death.
According to the order, “execution of the death sentence imposed on Joseph E. Corcoran be carried out on December 18, 2024, before the hour of sunrise.”
