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The U.S. Court of Appeals late Monday denied a request to stay Indiana death row inmate Joseph Corcoran’s execution, which is scheduled to take place before sunrise Wednesday.
The 2-1 decision follows a series of other refusals to delay Corcoran’s execution, despite repeated attempts by the inmate’s lawyers.
Although legal counsel have argued that he should be spared due to his “ongoing” mental illness, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the sentence, just as multiple state and federal courts have done. The state’s high court justices most recently refused additional attempts by defense lawyers to delay the execution and allow for Corcoran’s competency to be assessed. Appeals for post-conviction relief at the federal level have also been unsuccessful.
The U.S. Court of Appeals late Monday denied a request to stay Indiana death row inmate Joseph Corcoran’s execution, which is scheduled to take place before sunrise Wednesday.
The 2-1 decision follows a series of other refusals to delay Corcoran’s execution, despite repeated attempts by the inmate’s lawyers.
Although legal counsel have argued that he should be spared due to his “ongoing” mental illness, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the sentence, just as multiple state and federal courts have done. The state’s high court justices most recently refused additional attempts by defense lawyers to delay the execution and allow for Corcoran’s competency to be assessed. Appeals for post-conviction relief at the federal level have also been unsuccessful.
“Corcoran has submitted a detailed sworn notarized affidavit that articulately sets forth his desire not to pursue federal relief,” federal circuit judges Michael B. Brennan and Thomas L. Kirsch II wrote in their opinion, referring to a November letter Corcoran sent to the high court, in which he said he has “no desire nor wish[es] to engage in further appeals or litigation whatsoever.” With his “own free will” and “without coercion or promise of anything,” he asked the justices to withdraw his counsel’s motions..
“His composition and filing of that affidavit undercuts an assertion of incompetency to pursue a habeas petition,” the federal judges continued in the Monday opinion. “We seriously question whether Corcoran’s wife and attorneys have proved that he is incompetent to litigate himself. If not, next-friend status is not proper for him.”
Brennan and Kirsch further emphasized that Corcoran was found competent in 2004, “and he has not ever been adjudicated incompetent.”
“The record does not show evidence of Corcoran’s mental competency degrading since that earlier finding of competency,” the judges said. “There is also not a recent evaluation that Corcoran does not understand the reasons for his execution. Indeed, Corcoran’s affidavit attests that he does understand his execution and the reasons for it. The state court made no unreasonable factual determinations.”
Judge John Z. Lee disagreed with his colleagues, however.
He said in his dissent that, “to support its belief that Corcoran is competent to be executed and nothing has changed, the Indiana Supreme Court placed much stock in the statements Corcoran made in his November 21, 2024, affidavit.”
Lee said Indiana’s high court did not give Corcoran’s defense counsel an adequate opportunity to respond to that letter before issuing an opinion.
“The Indiana Supreme Court’s reliance on Corcoran’s untested affidavit is particularly troubling given that defense counsel’s entire theory is premised on Corcoran’s inability to rationally comprehend the reasons behind his execution and his efforts to hide his true motivations for seeking the death penalty,” Lee wrote.
He noted, too, 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,” the condemned man “is entitled to have at least one court assess his competency to be executed.”
Corcoran’s legal team filed for a rehearing by the full 7th Circuit Court of Appeals early Tuesday morning. That was denied a few hours later
The docket said “Because the Supreme Court has the final authority to speak on the issues raised by the Petitioner- Appellant, no judge in active service has requested a vote on the petition for rehearing en banc… The petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc is DENIED.”
Barring any intervention from the courts, Corcoran’s fate remains in the hands of Gov. Eric Holcomb — who has repeatedly maintained that he supports capital punishment, when “appropriate.”
The Republican governor told the Indiana Capital Chronicle last week that he believes Corcoran to be mentally ill, but that “the courts have spoken to his ability to stand, to carry out the sentence and conviction.” Holcomb made clear that he’s waiting for judicial proceedings to conclude before he takes any action, however.
He said he plans to be at the governor’s mansion on the night of the execution with “direct” communication access to the state prison.
Corcoran, who has been on death row since 1999, has long resisted opportunities to appeal his case that could potentially overturn his death sentence.
He was 22 when he killed his brother, James Corcoran, 30; Robert Scott Turner, 32; Douglas A. Stillwell, 30; and Timothy G. Bricker, 30, on July 26, 1997. He committed the murders at the home he shared with his brother and a sister.
His mental health has been a part of the decades-old case since its inception, with state and federal public defenders saying he continues to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia that causes him to experience “persistent hallucinations and delusions.”
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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