Joseph Edward Corcoran will take his final, dying breath before sunrise Wednesday morning at the age of 49. After waiting more than 25 years on death row and several last-effort appeals, Corcoran will become Indiana's first executed inmate in over 15 years.
He was convicted by a jury in 1999 for the quadruple murder of his brother, James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé, Robert Scott Turner, and two of their friends: Timothy Bricker and Douglas Stillwell, in Allen County in July 1997.
Corcoran, who was 24 at the time he was sentenced for the murders, was charged but acquitted just seven years prior in the deaths of his parents, Jack and Kathryn Corcoran, who were 53 and 47 when they were found shot to death in their home in Steuben County in 1992.
Corcoran will join a list of 90 other inmates who have been put to death since 1900.
A look at the history
The death penalty has been a part of Indiana's history even before statehood. Indiana is one of 21 states where the death penalty is legal, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
State executions were very popular in Indiana up until 1950, with a total of 68 of the 90 executions taking place during this time. The death penalty was outlawed nationwide in 1972 when the Supreme Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia that it was unconstitutional.
However, the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia decision made the death penalty legal once more under certain circumstances.
Under Indiana law, a person may be sentenced to death only after a murder conviction, if the state can prove a list of aggravating factors. Convicted criminals who were under 18 at the time of the crime may not be sentenced to death.
All of the death row inmates executed in Indiana since 1900 have been men.
Before 1913, the primary method of an execution in Indiana was by hanging. That changed with the invention of the electric chair, which was the method used under Indiana law from 1914 to 1995, until the switch to lethal injection.
Other notable facts:
- Youngest: William Ray (1920) and James Swain (1939), who were both 18 at sentencing.
- Oldest: John Rinkard (1902) who was 63 at sentencing.
Executions are resuming in Indiana. What was the delay?
In June, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita petitioned the state supreme court restart executions, after doses of pentobarbital, which can be used to carry out executions, was made available to the state.
“In Indiana, state law authorizes the death penalty as a means of providing justice for victims of society’s most heinous crimes and holding perpetrators accountable,” Attorney General Rokita said at the time. “Further, it serves as an effective deterrent for certain potential offenders who might otherwise commit similar extreme crimes of violence. Now that the Indiana Department of Correction is prepared to carry out the lawfully imposed sentence, it’s incumbent on our justice system to immediately enable executions in our prisons to resume."
In September, the Indiana Supreme Court officially set Dec. 18 as the date to execute Corcoran.Shortly after, Rokita requested the court set an execution date for another of death row inmate, Benjamin Ritchie, who has sat on death row since 2002 after being convicted of shooting and killing Beech Grove Police Officer William Toney in September 2000.
“Most Hoosiers and I expect justice without delay, especially when someone murders a police officer, one of the many, many brave men and women we thank and respect daily," Rokita said in a statement at the time. “This convicted cop killer has been on death row far too long—22 years—and it's past time for him to pay his debt to society.”
As of publication, no date has been set in Ritchie's case.
