Governor, AG push for Indiana’s first execution since 2009

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is one of 27 states where state-backed executions are still legal, but no one has been put to death in a Hoosier prison in 15 years. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita look to change that.

On Wednesday, Rokita’s office filed a motion with the Indiana Supreme Court seeking to set a date for the execution of Joseph Corcoran — a Fort Wayne man found guilty of murdering four people in 1997.

If put to death, Corcoran will be the first person to be executed by the State of Indiana since Matthew Eric Wrinkles was killed via lethal injection in 2009.

The federal system has been putting inmates to death in Terre Haute.

While Indiana’s death penalty remains in effect and eight convicted murderers currently sit on death row, a lack of drugs has meant a lack of executions.

Drugs used in the lethal injection cocktail include methohexital, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. But the drugmakers behind those drugs don’t want their products used to kill prisoners.

Some states have even sought workarounds by passing “secrecy statutes” to prevent companies from learning if the drugs were being purchased for execution purposes.

But Holcomb said, after years of effort, the Indiana Department of Correction has acquired a drug — pentobarbital — which can be used to carry out an execution.

“I am fulfilling my duties as governor to follow the law and move forward appropriately in this matter,” Holcomb said.

Corcoran was found guilty by a jury in 1999 of shooting and killing his brother, James Corcoran; his sister’s fiance, Robert Scott Turner; and two of their friends, Timothy Bricker and Douglas Stillwell. Corcoran has exhausted all his appeals in 2016, according to Rokita, and has been sitting in death’s row awaiting execution since.

“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,” Rokita said. “Further, it serves as an effective deterrent for certain potential offenders who might otherwise commit similar extreme crimes of violence.”

In his filing, Rokita called on the state’s high court to “immediately enable executions in our prison to resume” now that a lethal injection drug has been acquired. Corcoran is the first of Indiana’s death row convicts who could face the needle if the Indiana Supreme Court agrees to set an execution date and resume the death penalty.

Source: wgntv.com, Matt Christy, June 27, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Florida | Tampa Bay man who killed wife, 3 family members sentenced to die

Shelby Nealy will be executed by the state for bludgeoning his wife’s family to death in 2018, a judge decided Friday. During a two-week sentencing trial in July, jurors heard how Nealy, 32, ended a volatile relationship with his second wife by killing her, then murdered her parents and brother a year later in an effort to never be caught. He pleaded guilty to the crimes in 2023. On July 25, the jury of three men and nine women deliberated for about two hours and voted 11-1 that Nealy should be sentenced to death. He stared straight ahead as the verdict was read.

Texas | Death Sentence Overturned After 48 Years

The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Thursday that Clarence Jordan’s punishment was unconstitutional A death sentence handed down by a Harris County jury in 1978 was overturned Thursday by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Clarence Jordan, 70, has been on Texas Death Row for almost 50 years, serving out one of the longest death sentences in the nation while suffering from intellectual disabilities and schizophrenia, his attorney told the Houston Press.

US AG Authorizes Federal Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty for Three LA Gangsters Charged with Murder

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has directed federal prosecutors in Los Angeles to seek the death penalty against three members of a transnational street gang charged with murdering a former gang member who was cooperating with law enforcement on a racketeering and methamphetamine trafficking case, officials announced Thursday. In a letter to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli on Wednesday, Blanche told prosecutors in the Central District of California they are “authorized and directed” to seek the death penalty against Dennis Anaya Urias, 27, Grevil Zelaya Santiago, 26, and Roberto Carlos Aguilar, 31. All are from South Los Angeles.

Florida Schedules Two Executions for Late April

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Corrections to move forward with two executions scheduled for late April 2026, marking a significant ramp-up in the state's use of capital punishment. The scheduled deaths of Chadwick Willacy and James Ernest Hitchcock follow a series of landmark judicial rulings that have kept both men on death row for decades.

Texas appeals court says another man's confession not enough to reconsider Broadnax execution

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Tuesday it won't consider another man's confession as a reason to pause a scheduled lethal injection in three weeks. James Broadnax was convicted of murdering two Christian music producers in Garland, but his cousin, Demarius Cummings, recently confessed that he was the shooter. University of Texas School of Law Capital Punishment Clinic professor Jim Marcus said the appeals court acts as a gatekeeper for cases meeting criteria to get back in court.

Saudi Arabia | Seven executed for drug trafficking

Saudi authorities executed seven people who had been convicted of drug trafficking in a single day, state media says. The Saudi Press Agency says five Saudis and two Jordanians were found guilty of trafficking amphetamine pills into the kingdom. “The death penalty was carried out as a discretionary punishment against the perpetrators,” the agency reports, adding that the executions took place on Sunday in the Riyadh region. Since the beginning of 2026, Riyadh has executed 38 people in drug-related cases, the majority of the 61 executions carried out, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Singapore executes man for trafficking 1kg of cannabis

SINGAPORE — Singaporean authorities executed Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj at Changi Prison on Thursday, April 16, 2026, following his 2019 conviction for importing 1,009.1 grams of cannabis. Bamadhaj, 41, though some reports have cited his age as 46, was arrested on July 12, 2018, during a routine search at the Woodlands Checkpoint. Officers discovered the narcotics wrapped in plastic and hidden within his vehicle as he attempted to enter Singapore from Malaysia. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the threshold for the mandatory death penalty involving cannabis is 500 grams, a limit this shipment exceeded by more than double.

Former FedEx driver pleads guilty to killing 7-year-old girl after making delivery at her Texas home

FORT WORTH, Texas — Tanner Lynn Horner, a former contract delivery driver for FedEx, pleaded guilty Tuesday to the 2022 capital murder and aggravated kidnapping of 7-year-old Athena Strand, a move that abruptly shifted the proceedings into a high-stakes punishment phase where jurors will decide between life imprisonment and the death penalty. Horner, 34, entered the plea in a Tarrant County courtroom as his trial was set to begin. The case was moved to Fort Worth from neighboring Wise County last year after defense attorneys argued that pretrial publicity would prevent a fair trial in the community where the girl disappeared.

North Carolina | “Incapable to proceed”: man who killed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska ruled incompetent

DeCarlos Brown, accused of stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train, has been found mentally unfit for trial, stalling death penalty proceedings. DeCarlos Brown Jr., accused of fatally stabbing 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train in August 2025, has been found mentally incapable of standing trial, according to a court motion filed 7 April in Mecklenburg Superior Court. A 29 December 2025 report from Central Regional Hospital, a state psychiatric facility in Granville County, concluded that Brown was "incapable to proceed to trial," according to the motion filed by his attorney, Daniel Roberts. The evaluation was ordered after Brown's defense raised concerns about his mental state.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog