MICHIGAN CITY — No reporters or any other independent witnesses will be inside the Indiana State Prison Wednesday when 49-year-old convicted murderer Joseph Corcoran is put to death by lethal injection.
The Indiana Department of Correction has declined requests to permit the news media to observe the pre-sunrise killing of Corcoran, in accordance with an Indiana law intended to shield the identities of the individuals assisting Warden Ron Neal with the execution.
Under the statute, the only people permitted to watch the execution are the prison physician and one additional physician, Corcoran's spiritual adviser, the prison chaplain, up to five friends or relatives invited by Corcoran, and up to eight adult members of the victims' families.
The Death Penalty Information Center reports that Indiana and Wyoming are the only death penalty states that don't allow media witnesses at executions. However, the media is permitted to view federal government executions carried out at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute.
Corcoran's execution, Indiana's first in 15 years, will be unique because it's the first time the state will use the intravenous injection of a single drug — pentobarbital — to kill a convicted murderer, instead of a three-drug regimen.
However, the source of the fatal drug, how much the state paid for it, and the name of any person or business involved in producing or procuring it also is confidential under a 2017 state law enacted by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb aimed at securing execution drugs notwithstanding the opposition of many drug makers to the use of their products in executions.
The Indiana Department of Correction plans to hold no media briefings or interviews in connection with the execution.
Instead, updates will be distributed via email Tuesday afternoon prior to the execution and early Wednesday morning after Corcoran has been put to death.
Reporters, along with death penalty protesters and supporters, are permitted to gather in the Chicago Street parking lot outside the state prison beginning at 8 a.m. Tuesday.
Michigan City motorists should plan to avoid Hitchcock Street and Park Row near the prison Tuesday afternoon when both roads will be closed until after the execution.
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