Governor Eric Holcomb says he isn’t worried about a plan to put to death a state prisoner with a drug that’s never been used in an Indiana execution.
Holcomb said Thursday that while Indiana has never used pentobarbital in an execution, “Other states have, and we've done our due diligence.”
The proposed execution of Joseph Corcoran, convicted in four murders in 1998, would be the first state execution in Indiana in 15 years. On Wednesday, Indiana’s attorney general filed a court motion requesting an execution date.
“We’ve tracked this particular drug and feel comfortable that not only it’s the right drug but also that the (execution) protocol is in place, and we're prepared to carry out our duties,” Holcomb told reporters at an event in Indianapolis.
“We’ve tried to acquire the means to carry out our duty, and to follow the law, and carry out the law in a sentence. And we're in a position to do that. So, we are,” he said.
According to Holcomb, state officials have been trying for more than seven years to find a supplier of pentobarbital for use in executions.
“It's been harder to get for various reasons but recently we were able to,” he said.
Pentobarbital has been used for several years in other states that frequently execute prisoners such as Texas and Missouri.
States began turning to the drug after pharmaceutical companies banned the use of their medications in executions. The bans resulted in shortages that have put state executions on hold across the country for years.
Holcomb declined to say where the Indiana corrections department acquired the supply of pentobarbital, citing a 2017 secrecy law.
Death penalty experts say states are almost certainly getting their drugs from smaller companies rather than major manufacturers.
Due to the stigma against participating in executions in the medical profession, negligible revenues and potential for embarrassment if exposed, major drug companies generally steer clear of involvement in executions.
“The amount of money that you can make selling execution drugs to states is not even a drop in the bucket. It's not even a drop in the drop,” according to Robert Dunham, a defense attorney and expert on executions.
“And the doctors who are developing these drugs are not intending that the drugs be used to kill people. They're intending exactly the opposite. And they have a strong voice inside the company,” Dunham says.
Anti-death penalty activists have uncovered the identity of suppliers, which is why states go to extreme lengths to protect them.
"Secrecy laws are being put in place around the country,” says Abe Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, which opposes capital punishment. “They don't want people who oppose the death penalty to shine a spotlight on those who are making it possible. It’s embarrassing, frankly.”
Bonowitz, whose group tracks the use of drugs like pentobarbital, says it isn’t particularly surprising that Indiana found the drug.
“We know that attorneys general talk to each other,” Bonowitz said. “You can get this stuff in veterinarians’ offices, theoretically.”
The use of pentobarbital in executions is particularly controversial. It’s been linked to numerous cases of pulmonary edema, a potentially excruciating condition in which blood pours into the lungs while the prisoner is still alive.
Records from autopsies of two prisoners executed in Terre Haute in 2020 and 2021 showed evidence of edema in the lungs.
The company accused of supplying the drug for those executions, Connecticut-based chemical manufacturer Absolute Standards, Inc., stopped making it in late 2020, according to documentation obtained by WFIU/WTIU News.
Absolute Standards said it had been inundated by calls and emails after a weeks-long campaign led by Death Penalty Action and another group.
“If we can figure out where this is coming from in Indiana, we’ll do it there, too,” Bonowitz said. “The pharmaceutical companies that make these drugs do not want it to be known that their drugs are being used for executions.”
Bonowitz said that beyond the question how executions are conducted, there’s no compelling reason to restart them in Indiana.
“There's always going to be the empty chair at the table, and no amount of killing is going to bring back our loved ones,” he said. “We know that we can be holding people who've done awful crimes accountable and safe from them without executions. And we know that because in Indiana, we haven't had an execution in over 15 years. And in the vast majority of cases, they don't even get a death sentence.”
He added: “This is an unnecessary, political game.”
The man Holcomb’s administration is seeking to execute, Joseph Corcoran of Fort Wayne, was convicted of killing four people in 1998.
Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull sentenced him to death for the murders of his brother James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé Robert Scott Turner, and two of their friends: Timothy Bricker and Douglas Stillwell.
In July 1997, a 22-year-old Joseph Corcoran was upstairs in a Fort Wayne home where he lived when he heard men's voices below. He thought they were talking about him and took a semi-automatic rifle downstairs. He shot his brother, Turner, and Bricker at close range. Stillwell tried to escape, but Corcoran chased him into the kitchen and shot him.
Offered a guilty plea or a bench trial in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, Corcoran went ahead with a jury trial after nine months of negotiations.
His lawyers intended to argue he was insane at the time of the shootings, but after evaluations from court-appointed psychiatrists found him to be competent to stand trial, that request was withdrawn, according to court documents. An Allen County Superior Court jury convicted him on all counts and he was sentenced to death in August 1999.
After he was sentenced to death, Corcoran repeatedly flip-flopped on his appeals, first refusing to sign a petition for post-conviction relief saying he should be put to death. In 2003, defense attorneys presented evidence he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and court officials acknowledged the same, according to court documents.
Multiple versions of his case — Corcoran I to Corcoran V — that have made their way through the state appeals courts, federal appeals courts, up to the U.S. Supreme Court and back down again. Issues raised have been his mental health and whether his rights were violated over the request he have a bench trial.
A final appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was denied in 2016, but no execution date has ever been set.
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