Indiana prison staffers, the condemned man’s friends and family members, and the victims’ family members may witness the state's first execution since 2009. It’s likely that no independent witnesses will be included.
Joseph Corcoran, who killed four people in 1997, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 18. It would be the state’s first time killing a prisoner with pentobarbital instead of a traditional three-drug cocktail. Public information on how it goes will come exclusively from the Department of Correction because Indiana law doesn’t allow for media or other independent witnesses, reports the Indiana Capital Chronicle. There were 13 federal executions during the last six months of Donald Trump’s first presidential term and reporters were allowed to witness them.
Execution “is the most extreme punishment that society takes in any criminal case,” said Cornell law Prof. John Blume, “And if you want the public to have confidence in the administration of justice, it seems to me like you would want transparency to be at its highest when (government) is taking its most draconian action.” Indiana law says only certain people may witness an execution: the state’s prison warden and designees, the prison physician and another doctor, the prison chaplain, the condemned’s spiritual adviser, a maximum of five friends or family members of the condemned, and a maximum of eight family members — at least 18 years old — of the victims or victims. An analysis in the Mississippi College Law Review found that Indiana was one of just five states, with Colorado, Georgia, Texas and Wyoming, that explicitly doesn’t allow reporters or “respectable” citizens as witnesses. Twenty states allowed for either a reporter or another independent witness, or didn’t rule them out. Four states expressly included reporters and other members of the public.
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