Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb (Republican) announced on Wednesday that he would execute a convicted murderer after obtaining the drugs used in lethal injections before his execution, marking the first execution in the state in 15 years.
Holcomb said he and state Attorney General Todd Rokita, a fellow Republican, are seeking to carry out the death penalty for Joseph Corcoran, 49, who was convicted of killing four people in 1997.
Corcoran finished appealing his sentence in a federal appeals court in 2016 and is awaiting execution, Holcomb said.
“After years of hard work, the Indiana Department of Corrections has acquired the drug pentobarbital, which can be used in executions,” the governor said in a statement. “As governor, I am therefore fulfilling my duty to follow the law and move this matter forward appropriately.”
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Anti-death penalty signs are displayed in front of the Indiana State Penitentiary in Michigan City, Indiana, Thursday, December 10, 2009, protesting the execution of Matthew Eric Wrinkles, the last inmate executed in Indiana. (Associated Press)
Rokita filed a petition Wednesday in the state Supreme Court asking it to set an execution date.
Indiana’s last execution was in 2009, when Matthew Eric Wrinkles was put to death for the murders of his wife, her brother and his sister-in-law, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the state has eight inmates on death row.
A 15-year hiatus in executions was blamed on a lack of availability of the death penalty drug, but the state Department of Corrections now has a stockpile of pentobarbital, a sedative used as an execution drug in several states. It is unclear how the state obtained the drug.
Indiana: The state has eight inmates on death row. (AP Photo/Sue Oglocki, File)
“In Indiana, the death penalty is permitted by state law as a means to bring justice to victims of our society’s most heinous crimes and hold perpetrators accountable,” Rokita said. “Furthermore, the death penalty serves as an effective deterrent against certain potential offenders who may commit similar crimes of extreme violence.”
“Now that the Indiana Department of Corrections is prepared to carry out lawfully imposed sentences, it is incumbent on our justice system to allow the death penalty to resume immediately in our prisons,” Rokita continued.
Corcoran’s federal defender, Larry Komp, said he would respond to the state’s motion and seek clarification about the state’s lethal injection procedures.
The drugs used in lethal injection, the most common method of execution in the United States, have become harder to obtain, leading some states to seek new ways to carry out the death penalty.
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Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb said he is seeking to resume executions in Indiana prisons. (AP Photo/Daron Cummings, File)
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Earlier this year, Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas in the execution of convicted murderer Kenneth Smith. In an execution method criticized as inhumane and a form of torture, Smith trembled and writhed on a gurney, at times resisting his restraints, and breathed heavily for several minutes until he could no longer feel himself breathing.
Corcoran is incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, where he has been on death row since 1999, according to Department of Corrections records.
He was convicted in July 1997 of murdering his brother James Corcoran, 30, Douglas A. Stillwell, 30, Robert Scott Turner, 32, and Timothy G. Bricker, 30.
In 2020, the first federal execution in 17 years took place at a federal prison in Indiana.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
