Indiana Schedules First State Execution in 15 Years

Indiana has an execution on the calendar for the first time in 15 years. Joseph Corcoran is set to be executed before sunrise on December 18, by order of the Indiana Supreme Court. Corcoran, convicted for the 1997 murders of his brother and three others, has been on death row since 1999. He had argued that his mental illness made the execution unconstitutional and that the state hadn't disclosed its execution protocol but exhausted his appeals in 2016.

Indiana last performed a state execution in 2009, when Matthew Wrinkles was executed for killing his wife and her relatives. The absence of executions in recent years has been attributed to a shortage of lethal injection drugs. However, Governor Eric Holcomb announced in June that the state had acquired pentobarbital, a sedative used in lethal injections. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)