Indiana Plans to Resume Executions after 15-Year Pause with a Severely Mentally Ill ​“Volunteer”

The state of Indiana is sched­uled to car­ry out its first exe­cu­tion in 15 years on December 18, 2024, with the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Joseph Corcoran.

Sentenced to death for the 1997 mur­ders of four peo­ple, includ­ing his broth­er, Mr. Corcoran has a long his­to­ry of seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. He has been diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia, which includes symp­toms of hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions, and mul­ti­ple experts have tes­ti­fied that he is incom­pe­tent to face exe­cu­tion. Mr. Corcoran holds the con­sis­tent belief that prison guards are tor­tur­ing him with an ultra­sound machine. 

Despite this, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in September 2024 that ​“past evi­dence of men­tal ill­ness” is not enough to block Mr. Corcoran’s exe­cu­tion. During his orig­i­nal sen­tenc­ing hear­ing in 1999, Mr. Corcoran told the court that he want­ed to waive his appeals and refused to sign a post-con­vic­tion peti­tion. Following this waiv­er, the court held a com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing in October 2003 and deter­mined that based on Mr. Corcoran’s tes­ti­mo­ny, he was com­pe­tent to waive his appeals but acknowl­edged his men­tal ill­ness. His deci­sion to waive his appeals places Mr. Corcoran among many on death row who have ​“vol­un­teered” for exe­cu­tion, and thus not had their con­vic­tions and death sen­tences under­go the search­ing, mean­ing­ful judi­cial review that the law and jus­tice requires. 

If exe­cut­ed, Mr. Corcoran will be the third vol­un­teer in 2024 to be put to death. 

In many states, the his­to­ry of the death penal­ty is a his­to­ry of vol­un­teers: in four states — Connecticut, New Mexico, Oregon, and Pennsylvania — the only pris­on­ers exe­cut­ed have been vol­un­teers, and vol­un­teers were the first to be exe­cut­ed in 15 states and by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment when it resumed exe­cu­tions in the mod­ern era. 

DPI defines a vol­un­teer as a pris­on­er who takes affir­ma­tive steps to has­ten their exe­cu­tion, includ­ing waiv­ing appeals, ask­ing for an exe­cu­tion date, or instruct­ing their attor­neys not to file end-stage lit­i­ga­tion. On January 17, 1977, Gary Gilmore, sen­tenced to death in Utah just two months ear­li­er, became the first per­son to be exe­cut­ed in the US fol­low­ing the Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), which upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Including Mr. Gilmore, 165 indi­vid­u­als have vol­un­teered for their exe­cu­tion since 1977.

Due to changes in the ​“legal land­scape” of Indiana since 2003, attor­neys for Mr. Corcoran believe that a new post-con­vic­tion peti­tion is legal­ly cog­niz­able. They point to a 2021 rul­ing from the Indiana Supreme Court in Isom v. State which allowed a pris­on­er fac­ing exe­cu­tion to file a post-con­vic­tion peti­tion despite his refusal to ver­i­fy the peti­tion with a sig­na­ture ahead of the dead­line. In that case Kevin Isom failed to sign his peti­tion. Despite this, the state Supreme Court ordered the low­er court to accept Mr. Isom’s peti­tion with­out his sig­na­ture. Like, Mr. Isom, Mr. Corcoran has not signed the pre­pared mate­ri­als to ini­ti­ate the clemen­cy process or oth­er means of relief. Mr. Corcoran’s legal team filed a motion ask­ing the state’s Supreme Court to stay his exe­cu­tion to allow for a low­er court to hold an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on his post-con­vic­tion peti­tion, which was denied on December 5, 2024.

Volunteers have been promi­nent among states that restart exe­cu­tions after a long pause. In November 2021, Mississippi exe­cut­ed David Cox, mark­ing the sixth time a state has restart­ed exe­cu­tions after a pause of at least five years by com­ply­ing with the wish­es of a vol­un­teer. 

Executions of vol­un­teers have end­ed exe­cu­tion paus­es of five years and six years in South Dakota, sev­en years in Louisiana, nine years in Kentucky, and more than 20 years in Nebraska. If Indiana pro­ceeds with Mr. Corcoran’s exe­cu­tion, his exe­cu­tion would be the sev­enth time a state resumed exe­cu­tions with a vol­un­teer after a con­sid­er­able time period.

Analysis from DPI that found that of the 165 peo­ple exe­cut­ed at their own request since 1977, 87% bat­tled men­tal ill­ness, sub­stance abuse, or both. About 46% of peo­ple sen­tenced to death in the mod­ern era have been white men — but they make up 84% of vol­un­teers. The last ten vol­un­teers, going back to 2016, have all been white men. Meanwhile, 41% of mod­ern death sen­tences have been imposed on Black men, but they rep­re­sent only 5% of vol­un­teers (eight total). Statistics for women are some­what more con­sis­tent: about 2% of peo­ple sen­tenced to death have been women of any race, and 2% of vol­un­teers have been women (only three total, all white).

— For more infor­ma­tion on exe­cu­tion vol­un­teers, see DPI’s Execution Volunteers list or search for vol­un­teers in DPI’s Execution Database.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Staff, December 6, 2024

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

— Oscar Wilde