Indiana death row inmate who killed his own brother in quadruple murder wants execution halted

A death row inmate convicted of killing four people, including his own brother, is asking the Indiana Supreme Court to deny a request to set a date for his execution.

Attorneys for Joseph Corcoran argued that he should not be subject to the death penalty as they insisted he is “unquestionably seriously mentally ill," in a filing on Thursday. It came in response to a request from Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita on June 26 to set a date for his execution as the Indiana Department of Correction has now acquired a drug to carry out lethal injection.

Corcoran's execution would mark the first in Indiana since 2009. The 49-year-old was acquitted of shooting his parents to death in November 1992.

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After this, he had plans to finish high school and follow in his late father's footsteps by joining the Marines. But on July 26, 1997, he shot and killed his brother, his sister’s fiancé and two other men at his sister’s home in Fort Wayne.

He was convicted of the killings and sentenced to death in 1999. But his attorneys argue the court should deny the request to set his execution date as they claim Corcoran has long been diagnosed as mentally ill and suffers from paranoid schizophrenia that causes him to experience “persistent hallucinations and delusions.”

"An unspeakable tragedy took the lives of four people who unquestionably deserved to live," Corcoran's attorney noted. "This tragedy, however, has a nexus to a serious mental illness that persists through today."

They continued: "No one contests that Corcoran suffers from a mental illness. This is clear from his delusion that prison guards torture him daily with an ultrasound machine, his conversations with individuals who are not there, and his delusion that he suffers from an involuntary speech disorder."

His attorneys said they believe if it hadn't have been for Corcoran's mental illness, he could have avoided the death penalty as they claimed it "affected the decision-making process", noting Cocoran's “ultimate refusal to accept either a plea bargain or a bench trial without the death penalty was a product of his mental illness.”

The death row inmate's attorneys are also calling for the court to determine whether state and federal constitutions permit the execution of a person with a severe mental illness. They pointed to the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, which restricts capital punishment to offenders who commit “a narrow category of the most serious crimes and whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution.”

They have also raised concerns about the execution drug, pentobarbital and a secrecy statute that protects the drug protocol and source of drugs used for lethal injections.

“The State moved for a date after, at some point, most likely recently, acquiring drugs from some unknown source. While a secrecy statute is in place, the date should not be set until the State delivers the new protocol and affirms no state or federal laws were broken in obtaining the drugs. A secrecy statute cannot condone the illegal acquisition of controlled substances,” Corcoran’s attorneys said.

They continued: “There has been no disclosure regarding the amount of the drug in their possession, whether they are expired, or their potency and sterility.