In the winter of 2021, two death row prisoners raised claims in habeas corpus proceedings that their trial attorneys were constitutionally ineffective. But the nation’s highest court split in a decision last month ruling that they could not introduce evidence outside of the state court record due to restrictions imposed by a federal law.
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COVID may have seemed like the only thing that happened in 2020, but for Indiana’s legal community, the past year brought watershed developments that will be with us for years to come, many of which were touched directly by the pandemic. Here are the Top 10 non-coronavirus Indiana legal news stories as determined by consensus of the Indiana Lawyer editorial staff.
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Attorney Ashley Eve was one of more than a dozen death penalty protesters who claimed that their First Amendment rights were violated when Indiana State Police set up roadblocks that kept capital punishment protestors almost 2 miles away from the federal prison in Terre Haute while three executions took place there last month. Eve was motivated to a career in law by her opposition to the death penalty.
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With federal death row in its jurisdiction, the Southern Indiana District Court is preparing but does not know what to expect as the U.S. Department of Justice moves forward with the resumption of executions after nearly two decades.
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The Indiana Department of Correction has refused to disclose how much the state paid to acquire a new execution drug, pentobarbital, that could be used to carry out at least one death warrant before the end of the year.
Counsel for Benjamin Ritchie, a man convicted in 2002 of murdering Beech Grove Police Officer William Toney, have until Nov. 1 to file a clemency request in response to the state’s motion to set an execution date, Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush wrote in an Oct. 3 order.
The Supreme Court is taking the bench again on Monday, ready to hear cases on ghost guns, a death sentence and transgender rights.
Larry Komp, lead attorney for death row inmate Joseph Corcoran’s legal team, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle his client is seeking a last plea with a clemency petition, however. Komp said he plans to visit with Corcoran — who’s currently being held at the Indiana State Prison— and file the necessary paperwork this week.
Experts say five executions being scheduled within one week is simply an anomaly that resulted from courts or elected officials in individual states setting dates around the same time after inmates exhausted their appeals.
The Indiana Supreme Court set the date for inmate Joseph E. Corcoran’s death Wednesday.
Williams, 55, is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24 for the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle in the St. Louis suburb of University City. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton on Wednesday will preside over an evidentiary hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But the key piece of evidence to support Williams is DNA testing that is no longer viable.
A Florida man scheduled to be put to death on Thursday is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution so that his challenge to Florida’s lethal injection procedures can be heard.
A Texas man described as intellectually disabled by his lawyers faced execution on Wednesday for strangling and trying to rape a woman who went jogging near her Houston home more than 27 years ago.
Earlier this month, Corcoran’s lawyers said in court filing that he is “unquestionably seriously mentally ill” and therefore should not be subject to the death penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for a Texas man shortly before he was to receive a lethal injection in a killing decades ago.
The Commission on Court Appointed Attorneys is requesting public comment on recommendations to the state’s death penalty rule.
Attorneys for Indiana death row inmate Joseph Corcoran appealed the state’s request for an execution date on Thursday, maintaining that he is “unquestionably seriously mentally ill” and therefore should not be subject to the death penalty.
After state officials announced last week that Indiana will resume executions for the first time in over a decade, secrecy largely shrouds the new drug, pentobarbital, acquired for the impending lethal injections.
Gov. Eric Holcomb doubled down Thursday on the state’s move to seek an execution date for Fort Wayne’s Joseph Corcoran, who was convicted of murdering four people in 1997.
Gov. Eric Holcomb and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita call for reinstating executions in Indiana and to start with a 1997 murderer.
David Hosier, 69, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. following a single-dose injection of the sedative pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre. Hosier was convicted of the 2009 killings of Angela and Rodney Gilpin in the state capital of Jefferson City.
The new Tennessee law, which goes into effect July 1, authorizes the state to pursue capital punishment when an adult is convicted of aggravated rape of a child.
Indiana’s death penalty law exists in name only. What would Indiana’s GOP candidates for governor do differently?
Michael Dewayne Smith received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:20 a.m., Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesperson Lance West said.