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Eric Holcomb, the Republican governor of Indiana, has stated that he intends to carry out the first execution in the state since 2009.
Knewz.com has learned that Holcomb is seeking a date for the execution of a man convicted of quadruple homicide.
Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a motion to the Supreme Court on June 26, requesting a date for the execution of Joseph Corcoran.
The Republican Governor released a statement regarding the proposed execution of Corcoran, saying that "after years of effort," the state's Department of Correction has acquired the drug Pentobarbital used in lethal injections.
"Accordingly, I am fulfilling my duties as governor to follow the law and move forward appropriately in this matter," Governor Holcomb said in the statement.
Attorney General Rokita also made a statement regarding the matter:
"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... Further, it serves as an effective deterrent for certain potential offenders who might otherwise commit similar extreme crimes of violence."
"Now that the Indiana Department of Correction is prepared to carry out the lawfully imposed sentence, it’s incumbent on our justice system to immediately enable executions in our prisons to resume."
Corcoran, a man from Allen County, Indiana, was convicted in 1997 of fatally shooting his brother James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé Robert Scott Turner, and two of their friends: Timothy Bricker and Douglas Stillwell.
Citing archived newspaper articles, local news outlet Indy Star reported that on the night of the incident, Corcoran got angry with the victims because he thought they were talking about him.
After putting his niece to bed, he gunned down the victims using a semiautomatic rifle.
Corcoran has been on death row since 1999 and has been awaiting his execution ever since he ran out of Federal Appeals in 2016, per a report by The Associated Press. According to the Indiana Department of Corrections database, he is currently held at the Indiana State Prison.
Notably, Governor Holcomb's decision to resume executions in Indiana after a 15-year gap has faced criticisms from Catholic activists in the state.
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, said in a statement via Detroit Catholic:
"15 years since Indiana's last execution -- a hiatus brought on in part because of the state's struggle to purchase lethal injection drugs."
"Like many other states, Indiana has been met with difficulty in procuring lethal injection drugs after the pharmaceutical companies which provide them have opted not to have their products be used to kill."
It is worth noting that many states have had to find a workaround to carry on executions without the use of lethal injection.
In January 2024, Alabama became the first state in the country to use nitrogen hypoxia in carrying out an execution.
She further pointed out that although the state has not conducted executions since 2009, " [Indiana] houses the federal death row at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, and therefore still carries the dark stain of a six-month federal execution spree which was conducted during the Trump administration [in 2020]."
"After a 17-year hiatus of federal executions, former President (Donald) Trump oversaw 13 hurried executions before the end of his term -- many of which took place in the dark of night," Murphy added.
