Attorneys for Indiana death row inmate call for Supreme Court to block execution
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Attorneys for an Indiana death row inmate convicted of murdering four people have again asked the Indiana Supreme Court to block his execution.
In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Joseph Corcoran called on the state’s highest court to use “modern, contemporary standards” when it considers potential execution of a defendant who is mentally ill.
Corcoran, 49, of Fort Wayne, was found guilty in the shooting deaths on July 26, 1997, of four men.
The men included his brother, James Corcoran, 30; his sister’s fiancé, Robert Turner, 32; and two friends of James, Timothy Bricker, 30, and Doug Stillwell. Joseph Corcoran used a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle in the shooting inside the home he lived in with his sister, Murderpedia reports.
The website also says that Joseph Corcoran at age 17 was accused of shooting his parents because they were too strict. A jury, though, was unconvinced, and Corcoran went free.
In previous court filings, Corcoran’s attorneys state that Corcoran has long been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which causes him to experience “persistent hallucinations and delusions.” Earlier in July, they appealed the state’s request for an execution date, stating that his serious mental illness should bar him from the death penalty.
The brief cites that, in the past two decades, 11 states have banned capital punishment. It also claims that no state surrounding Indiana allows the execution of a person with a serious mental illness.
Corcoran’s attorneys also cite a decision by Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears to drop a death penalty request for Elliahs Dorsey, the man accused of killing IMPD Officer Breann Leath.
A jury found Dorsey guilty but mentally ill on a charge of reckless homicide in Leath’s death.
Corcoran’s attorneys also argue the state has not “genuinely contested” that Corcoran is mentally ill.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the court in June to set an execution date for Corcoran, saying his appeals had been exhausted and that the state had obtained the necessary drugs to carry out a lethal injection.
If given the death penalty, Corcoran will be the first Indiana death row inmate executed since 2009.
News 8’s Gregg Montgomery and Michaela Springer contributed to this report.
