Joseph Corcoran (Public Records)
In a split decision, the Indiana Supreme Court has denied convicted murderer Joseph Corcoran’s request for a stay of execution.
That means the 49-year-old man will be executed on Dec. 18 for the 1998 murders of four people inside a Fort Wayne home.
In 1999, an Allen Superior Court jury convicted Corcoran of the murders of his brother James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé Robert Scott Turner, and two of their friends: Timothy Bricker and Douglas Stillwell.
His case has been caught up in legal wrangling over his mental condition in the decades since his conviction and sentencing.
In June Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita asked for an execution date to be set in the case, which had sat without a date for years after Corcoran’s numerous appeals in state and federal court had been denied.
Final briefs were submitted in the case by Corcoran’s defense attorneys earlier this week. They argued that he was incompetent to be executed due to his paranoid schizophrenia, and that his execution would violate the state and U.S. constitutions.
Thursday evening, Chief Justice Loretta Rush issued an order affirming the execution date and rejecting Corcoran’s arguments.
Justices Mark Massa, Geoffrey Slaughter, and Derek Molter ruled in favor of Corcoran’s execution. Chief Justice Rush and Justice Christopher Goff opposed it.
In the court’s order, Rush promised a written opinion to be issued “promptly” explaining the ruling. No opinion had been issued as of 10:30 p.m.
