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The secrecy surrounding the return of death penalty executions in Indiana isn’t exactly doing much to bolster public confidence in what some consider to be an inhumane act.
A law that Indiana approved in 2017 already has made information about the source of lethal-injection drugs confidential. At the time, lawmakers said it was nearly impossible to obtain the drugs without providing cover for the manufacturers and distributors.
But, as the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported, the state in recent months also has pointed to the law as the reason for denying additional information about the cost, potency, expiration and amount of the pentobarbital it obtained for the execution last month of quadruple murderer Joseph Corcoran.
That lack of transparency isn’t helped by the fact that Indiana also is one of only two states where the law also doesn’t provide for the media to witness executions. The other is Wyoming.
In the case of Corcoran, a Capital Chronicle reporter was granted access to watch the execution, but that’s only because Corcoran agreed to let the reporter be among the five witnesses a doomed inmate is allowed to select.
Indiana’s secrecy on top of its less than stellar record in carrying out executions doesn’t do much to build confidence that everything will go off as it should as more Indiana death row inmates exhaust their appeals.
Of 61 well-known “botched” U.S. executions listed by University of Colorado professor Michael L. Radelet since 1982, two were in Indiana.
He defines “botched” as those executions involving unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary agony for the prisoner that reflect gross incompetence of the executioner.
Listed as meeting that standard is Indiana’s 1985 execution of William Vandiver, convicted of stabbing retired construction worker Paul Komyatti Sr. of Hammond 34 times and then cutting up his body with a hacksaw.
After two jolts from the electric chair, Vandiver was brain dead but still breathing. Inexplicably, it took three more jolts to finish him off. A DOC official acknowledged that the execution “did not go according to plan.”
In 1995, the Indiana General Assembly changed the state’s method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection. But even that hasn’t always gone well.
Also joining Radelet’s list of “botched” executions is Indiana’s lethal injection of Tommie J. Smith, who was one of two men sentenced to die for the shooting death of Indianapolis Police Sgt. Jack Ohrberg.
News reports say it took one hour and nine minutes for Smith to be pronounced dead after the execution team began sticking him with needles.
Smith’s small veins made it difficult to find an injection point. A suitable vein was finally found in Smith’s foot.
In the Corcoran case, there’s no indication from the Capital Chronicle’s reporting that anything went awry with his execution.
But with more executions in the pipeline — seven more men are on Indiana’s death row — it’s important that the state allow more scrutiny of its processes and procedures.
Much more should be disclosed and witnessed.
It’s imperative because whenever judges decide that some crimes are so heinous that the perpetrator needs to be put to death, the state also has a responsibility to allow Hoosiers, through their media representatives, to see the process with eyes wide open and gather enough information to decide whether they think it’s something the state should be allowed to continue.•
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Greg Weaver is editor of Indiana Lawyer. Reach him at [email protected].
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