INDIANAPOLIS – After 15 years with no executions of the eight men on Indiana’s death row, Indiana’s top elected officials filed with the Indiana Supreme Court on Wednesday to schedule an execution date for Fort Wayne’s Joseph Corcoran. He was convicted of murdering four people in 1997.
Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita, in a news release, said the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC) has obtained the drug necessary to carry out the death penalty.
“After years of effort, the Indiana Department of Correction has acquired a drug — pentobarbital – which can be used to carry out executions. Accordingly, I am fulfilling my duties as governor to follow the law and move forward appropriately in this matter,” Holcomb said.
Corcoran’s death would be Indiana’s first execution since 2009.
Four of the men on Indiana’s death row have exhausted all their appeals — Corcoran exhausted his appeals in 2016 — and have no other recourse, according to the Indiana Public Defender Council’s website. All eight reside in the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.
Indiana’s officials signaled that more executions could be imminent, depending on the availability of lethal injection drugs.
Read the complete Whitney Downard/Niki Kelly story for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, here.
