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In new court documents, Joseph Corcoran’s legal team doubled down that the Indiana death row inmate’s “severe” mental illness has prevented him from properly requesting post-conviction relief.
The filing, submitted to the Indiana Supreme Court on Tuesday, was in response to state attorneys’ insistence that Corcoran “is competent to be executed.” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has adamantly rejected requests to put the execution on hold.
Corcoran’s execution will take place in two weeks — currently scheduled before sunrise on Dec. 18 — unless the state’s high court justices grant the inmate’s request for a stay and an opportunity to have his case reviewed.
So far, however, Corcoran has been unwilling to sign the necessary paperwork to initiate a clemency review or other avenues that could result in his removal from death row.
Corcoran’s lawyers said his ability to do so has been hampered by “the nature of his paranoid schizophrenia” and the ”persistent, painful delusions he suffers from.” Corcoran, his counsel emphasized, “is detached from reality.”
“There exist serious concerns about Corcoran’s mental state as his execution looms,” Corcoran’s defense attorney wrote in the latest court filing. “But two things are clear: Corcoran suffers from severe paranoid schizophrenia, and the manifestations of that schizophrenia prevent him from rationally understanding that the State intends to execute him because a jury found him guilty of murder. He does not understand why he is about to be executed, and there is no deterrence or retribution served. His execution would serve no purpose other than to inflict unconstitutionally inhumane cruel and unusual punishment.”
On his behalf, Corcoran’s attorneys asked the state’s supreme court to stay — delay — the execution and allow the Allen County Superior Court to hold an evidentiary hearing on a late petition for post-conviction relief.
A final plea for relief
Corcoran – then 22 — 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.
Joseph Corcoran told police at the time that the four men had been talking about him. He first placed his 7-year-old niece in an upstairs bedroom to protect her from the gunfire before killing the four men.
He then laid down the rifle, went to a neighbor’s house, and asked them to call the police. A search of his room and attic, to which only he had access, uncovered over 30 firearms, several munitions, explosives, guerrilla tactic military issue books, and a copy of “The Turner Diaries.”
At his original sentencing, Corcoran stated that he wanted to waive all his appeals. And in the early 2000s, when the time was still ripe for Corcoran to initiate post-conviction review, he refused to sign the post-conviction petition.
Those refusals are now at the center of a debate between Corcoran’s lawyers at the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.
In their Tuesday filing, the inmate’s legal team argued that Corcoran’s persistent “irrationality” is the “hallmark of the case.”
[H]is decisions rejecting a life plea offer, refusing to pursue post-conviction relief, and seeking his own execution are not motivated by clear thinking, but are instead the product of his desire to relieve the pain he feels from delusions (and his desire to prove his delusions — which to him are very real — are not actually delusions),” Corcoran’s defense attorney wrote.
They outlined a history in which Corcoran’s mental illness affected trial and post-conviction proceedings.
State attorneys originally offered Corcoran a life sentence if he would accept a plea or waive jury. He refused, however, saying he would only agree to the terms if the state “would sever his vocal cords first because his involuntary speech allowed others to know his innermost thoughts.”
Later, at his criminal trial, two mental health experts questioned Corcoran’s competency to proceed, the inmate’s lawyers recalled. The experts noted Corcoran was not competent to stand trial “because his mental illness rendered him incapable of assisting counsel in his own defense.”
In post-conviction, “Corcoran continued to act irrationally,” his lawyers said in their latest filing.
“… Corcoran’s decision-making regarding whether to pursue state post-conviction review was irrational because it was motivated by a delusion that the prison tortured him with an ultrasound machine,” they added.
Ongoing mental illness
Separately, Corcoran’s clemency request has yet to be accepted by the Indiana Parole Board. Although his lawyers have filed the petition on his behalf, Corcoran himself has not signed the necessary paperwork.
As of Tuesday, Indiana Parole Board chairwoman Gwendolyn Horth told the Capital Chronicle had not received the clemency petition with Corcoran’s signature and therefore “currently have no plans for a clemency hearing.” A decision regarding the last-ditch plea would be left to Indiana’s governor.
But Corcoran’s lawyers maintain that “if his mental illness prevents him from affixing his signature to a claim that he is severely mentally ill, it would be a Catch-22 (and an unconstitutional one, at that), to still require his signature.”
“He would be prevented from litigating his mental illness because he is mentally ill,” the state and federal defense attorneys continued. Requiring Corcoran’s signature, rather, would violate his Eighth Amendment and constitutional rights, they said.
“This Court should consider as a policy question whether it makes sense to deprive a mentally ill person access to the court to litigate competency simply because they do not sign a petition,” the lawyers wrote. “Subjecting the seriously mentally ill to such requirements imposes a penalty for suffering from a mental illness. It would, in effect, deprive them access to the courts to evaluate their mental illness because of their mental illness. Particularly, in cases such as Corcoran’s, where they seek to minimize their mental illness, an attorney must be able to litigate their competency on their behalf.”
State attorneys assert that Corcoran wants to be executed and has “a rational understanding of the reason for his execution.” The attorney general has additionally pointed to a 2006 letter and statements in years past in which Corcoran “admitted he fabricated this delusion.”
But the inmate’s lawyers emphasized that his statements “reflect only the dissonance of someone attempting to mask their mental illness.” They said, too, the most recent mental health professionals to evaluate Corcoran “have all questioned [his] competence under trial and post-conviction standards.”
“His denials are feeble considering the evidence, and simply prove his desire to mask his illness,” Corcoran’s lawyers said. “That these proclamations of fabrication came from the person whose paranoid schizophrenia removes him from reality and causes erratic thoughts and behavior alone renders the statements suspect.”
Further, defense counsel pointed to a short book Corcoran published in September, under the pseudonym of J.C. Chase, called, “A Whistle-blower report: Electronic Harassment.”
“The prison note and Corcoran’s book demonstrate that his delusions have not abated even with prison-administered psychotropic medication,” Corcoran’s attorneys wrote. “The book alone demonstrates the throes of the mental illness and how resistant to treatment it remains.”
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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