INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Republican Gov. Indiana. Eric Holcomb said the state will resume executions for the first time in more than a decade after acquiring a drug used for lethal injections.
Holcomb said Wednesday that the state is seeking an execution date for Joseph Corcoran, a man convicted of killing four people in 1997. Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a motion Wednesday asking the state Supreme Court to to determine the execution date.
The last execution in Indiana was in 2009, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Matthew Eric Wrinkles was executed for the murders of his wife and her brother and sister-in-law.
The year-long hiatus has been attributed to the unavailability of lethal injection drugs.
The Indiana Department of Correction has now acquired a drug used by several states in lethal injections — the sedative pentobarbital — after “years of effort,” according to Holcomb’s announcement.
“Accordingly, I am fulfilling my duties as governor to follow the law and move forward appropriately in this matter,” Holcomb said.
Corcoran’s attorney, federal defender Larry Komp, said they will respond to the state’s motion and ask for clarity on the state’s lethal injection protocol.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to voicemail messages and sent email messages requesting more information about how the state obtained the drug.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, pentobarbital was first introduced in 2010.
Some states are looking for new ways to execute prisoners as the drugs used in lethal injections, the most common method of execution in the United States, become increasingly difficult to find. Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas in an execution earlier this year.
Corcoran, 49,’s federal appeals ended in 2016. He is being held at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, according to Department of Correction online records.
Corcoran, of Fort Wayne, was convicted of killing his 30-year-old brother, James Corcoran, in July 1997; 30-year-old Douglas A. Stillwell; 32-year-old Robert Scott Turner; and 30-year-old Timothy G. Bricker. He has been on death row since 1999.
Eight people are on death row in Indiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In 2020, the first federal execution in 17 years took place at a federal prison in Indiana.
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This story has been updated to correct that the attorney general’s motion was filed in the Indiana Supreme Court, not Allen County Court.
