Indiana carried out its first execution since 2009, despite pleas from Corcoran's sister and the original prosecutor for clemency.
Joseph Corcoran, 49, died by lethal injection Wednesday for a 1997 quadruple homicide. Indiana carried out its first execution since 2009 before sunrise Wednesday, with much of the process concealed from the public. The execution was for the 1997 killings of his brother and three other men, one of whom was the fiancé of Corcoran's sister. Corcoran's legal team continued Tuesday to petition the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, to halt the execution.
A federal appeals court on Monday sided with a federal judge who ruled that he is competent to be executed. The Indiana Department of Correction said in a statement that the execution process began shortly after midnight CST and Corcoran was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. CST. The department said Tuesday evening that Corcoran requested Ben & Jerry's ice cream for his last meal. Corcoran's lawyers maintain that he suffered from 'severe and longstanding paranoid schizophrenia,' documented in self-published books from prison in which he described being subject to 'ultrasonic surveillance.' His mental state, the lawyers add, has prevented him from properly seeking post-conviction relief. 'If the courts do not stay the execution, we are asking Gov. Holcomb to grant clemency to Joe, a seriously mentally ill man,' Deputy Public Defender Joanna Green said in an email Tuesday. In a dissenting opinion for the appeals court, U.S. District Judge John Lee acknowledged that 'given Corcoran's long, undisputed history of severe mental illness and the pervasiveness of his continuing delusions, as evidenced by his book and recent medical records, Corcoran is entitled to have at least one court assess his competency to be executed
EXECUTION INDIANA MENTAL HEALTH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT CLEMENCY
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