Lawyers for Indiana death row inmate say mental illness should preclude execution • Indiana Capital Chronicle

Attorneys for Indiana death row inmate Joseph Corcoran appealed the state’s request for an execution date on Thursday, arguing that Corcoran was “undoubtedly seriously mentally ill” and therefore should not be given the death penalty.

Corcoran, who was convicted of murdering four people in Fort Wayne in 1997, filed his response with the Indiana Supreme Court two weeks after Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita announced that the state’s Department of Correction (DOC) procured the medication necessary to carry out the death penalty.

State and federal public defenders said in their lawsuit that Corcoran had long been diagnosed with mental illness and continued to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, which caused him to experience “persistent hallucinations and delusions.”

For this reason, they asked that the state Supreme Court deny the motion to set an execution date and hear oral arguments on whether the execution of Corcosan – whom they describe as “undoubtedly severely mentally ill” – was permissible under the Indiana and United States Constitutions.

“An indescribable tragedy cost the lives of four people who undoubtedly to live,” Corcoran’s lawyers said in Thursday’s filing. “However, this tragedy is linked to a serious mental illness that persists.”

There is no execution date set for Corcoran yet. It is now up to the state Supreme Court judges to decide how to proceed.

Does mental illness preclude Corcoran?

Corcoran’s public defenders specifically pointed to the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits the death penalty to offenders who “have committed a narrow category of the most serious crimes and who, by reason of their extreme culpability, most deserve execution.”

They also noted that people with severe mental illness, “particularly those whose Mental illnesses leading to psychosis, like Corcoran, share many of the same characteristics as adolescents and people with intellectual disabilities, for whom the United States Supreme Court has declared the death penalty to be “disproportionate punishment.”

Corcoran’s public defenders said he had been “repeatedly diagnosed with serious mental illness.” They pointed out that several experts at Corcoran’s trial testified that his mental illness “prevents him from making rational decisions.” They also argued that Corcoran’s “overwhelming desire to escape his psychiatric symptoms” likely led him to forego his previous opportunities to appeal.

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Response to the Set Execution Request (2)

“Corcoran would have escaped the death penalty entirely if his mental illness had not influenced the decision-making process during Corcoran’s trial,” his lawyers told the Indiana Supreme Court justices.

Corcoran’s lawyers also argued that his symptoms of schizophrenic hallucinations and delusions predated the murders. They also pointed to earlier expert testimony from Dr. Phillip Coons, who said Corcoran’s “ultimate refusal to accept either a plea bargain or a non-death penalty trial was a product of his mental illness.”

“In addition, a national consensus against the execution of severely mentally disabled ill,” Corcoran’s lawyers continued. “Every other contiguous state in this area of ​​the Midwest that has the death penalty has abolished the death penalty for the severely mentally ill.”

Many other states have also introduced bills that would prohibit the death penalty or execution of people with serious mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders, the lawyers added.

“There is clearly a regional consensus in this part of the Midwest, and a national consensus is emerging, to abolish the death penalty for the seriously mentally ill,” Corcoran said in his petition to the state Supreme Court.

For example, an Ohio state law that took effect in early 2021 prohibits the death penalty for defendants diagnosed with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and whose mental illness has “substantially impaired the person’s ability to Ability to make a rational judgment regarding the person’s behavior.”

The Ohio legislature has determined that an offender’s condition does not have to meet “the standard to be found not guilty by reason of insanity… or the standard to be found incompetent, Attempt.”

Kentucky followed suit in early 2022 with a law that exempts offenders with “active symptoms and a documented medical history, including a diagnosis” from the death penalty. Corcoran’s attorney emphasized that one of the mental illnesses listed in Kentucky is schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

Corcoran’s lawyers said Indiana also recognized that consensus in the case of Elijah Dorsey, who was convicted earlier this year of killing an Indianapolis police officer. Although Marion County prosecutors had sought the death penalty, they ultimately rejected it after Dorsey was deemed mentally ill and therefore intolerable.

Questions about the means of execution

Corcoran’s lawyer also questioned the execution drug pentobarbital, which the state had recently acquired, but largely kept secret by Indiana authorities.

When asked by the Indiana Capital Chronicle where the DOC got the drug and how much the state paid for it, Holcomb said last month he “cannot legally get into those details.”

What is pentobarbital? Indiana’s new execution drug has more questions than answers.

On the last day of the 2017 legislative session, lawmakers declared information about the origin of the drugs confidential.

The Capital Chronicle has made a request for disclosure of the cost of the drugs.

Advocates have also said it is critical for the public to know who will administer the drug – and how – and what training those people will receive.

“The State requested a date after acquiring drugs from an unknown source at some point, most likely recently. Although a secrecy law is in effect, the date should not be set until the State submits the new record and certifies that no state or federal laws were violated in obtaining the drugs. A secrecy law cannot condone the illegal acquisition of controlled substances,” Corcran’s attorneys said. “There was no information about the quantity of drugs in their possession, whether they were expired, or their potency and sterility. The State should provide this information to the Court and Corcoran. This can and should be done in a manner consistent with the secrecy law before this Court allows enforcement.”

The single-drug method represents a departure from the state’s protocol used since 1995, which involves a series of three chemicals.

Although pentobarbital has not been used in any state executions in Indiana, the drug has been used in 13 federal executions at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute. Pentobarbital has also been used in executions in 14 states.

After Indiana’s last execution in 2009, the state was effectively forced to pause. Tightened controls on lethal injection drugs led pharmaceutical companies to stop selling their products for executions. Holcomb said This has made it “more difficult to obtain the necessary medication.”

There are currently eight men on Indiana’s death row, including Corcoran. No one has been added to the state’s death row since 2014.