Indiana
Anti-death penalty advocates rally at Indiana Statehouse against resuming state executions
Trump calls for mass deportations, death penalty for drug dealers
Donald Trump during a town hall event in Michigan again called for massive deportations and the death penalty for people who sell the illegal drugs.
When her son was taken from her by gun violence at 28 years old, Crystal Walker felt the anger first. She said she wished the person responsible would die.
But after a few weeks, Walker, who’s now a chaplain at the Indiana Women’s Prison, realized that would mean another parent would have to go through what she went through. And that felt wrong, she said.
“Even if that person is a mass murderer and murders other people, we don’t have the right to figure out when, where, how someone else dies,” she said on the steps of the Indiana Statehouse Sunday afternoon, where dozens gathered to protest Gov. Eric Holcomb’s decision to resume state executions in Indiana after a 15-year hiatus.
“That’s God’s business, right there,” Walker said.
Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita announced in June that they were seeking to resume executions in Indiana state prisons, starting with Joseph Corcoran, who was convicted of murdering four people in Allen County in 1997. The Indiana Supreme Court scheduled Corcoran’s execution for Dec. 18.
President-elect Donald Trump had also signaled during his campaign that he would not only resume federal executions but expand who is eligible for them.
The Indiana Abolition Coalition and Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty organized the rally to urge Holcomb to stop Corcoran’s execution and end capital punishment in Indiana, arguing that it’s undignified, morally wrong and, in an appeal to Hoosiers’ practicality, expensive for taxpayers.
Bill Breeden, a minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington and a longtime anti-death penalty activist, called on Holcomb to go to the death chamber and witness Corcoran’s execution, if he won’t stop it.
“There is no other premeditated, cold-blooded murder like that in the world,” he said. “None.”
In their announcement, Holcomb said the Department of Corrections had recently acquired a lethal injection drug called pentobarbital, “after years of effort.”
Speaking to reporters days after the announcement, Holcomb would not divulge details about the source or cost of the drug ― information state legislators have made confidential under state law. Holcomb said he thinks executions are “appropriate in these rare cases of heinous crimes,” the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.
“When such evil is on display, I personally believe in this,” he said.
Rokita, who ran successfully for reelection this fall, said in the news release that the death penalty is a “means of providing justice for victims of society’s most heinous crimes and holding perpetrators accountable.”
In September, Rokita filed another motion seeking an execution date, this time for Benjamin Ritchie, a man convicted in the shooting death of Beech Grove police officer William Toney in 2000.
Matthew Wrinkles, an Evansville man convicted of killing his wife and two of her family members in 1994, was the last person to be executed in Indiana, in 2009.
Joseph Corcoran’s case had many twists and turns
In 1997, 22-year-old Joseph Corcoran was living with his brother, James Corcoran, his sister, Kelly Nieto, and her fiancé, Robert Turner.
On July 26, according to Corcoran, he was upstairs and overheard his brother and Turner talking about him with some friends ― Timothy Bricker and Doug Stillwell ― in the living room. He put his 7-year-old niece in an upstairs bedroom, grabbed his semiautomatic rifle and fatally shot the four men downstairs. Then he went to a neighbor’s house and asked them to call the police.
A jury convicted Corcoran on four counts of murder in 1999, and the trial court sentenced him to death.
Corcoran’s mental health has been a recurring issue through his case. Before his trial in Allen County, his defense initially filed a notice that they would assert an insanity defense. But after court-ordered doctors evaluated him, the defense withdrew the notice, and the court found him competent to stand trial.
The Indiana Supreme Court initially threw out Corcoran’s death penalty sentence over a concern with the trial court’s process but later affirmed the sentence after the trial court reinstated it. When at first Corcoran wouldn’t sign a petition for post-conviction relief in 2003, his defense requested another psychological evaluation to determine whether Corcoran was competent to make this decision. While the experts found Corcoran suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, the court determined Corcoran was nonetheless competent to waive his relief because he demonstrated that he clearly understood the status of his case and the consequences of his decision.
In 2005, Corcoran changed his mind and tried to file for post-conviction relief, but it was too late. That year, he also filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, claiming the state violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial during pre-trial negotiations. The district court granted the petition, but a federal appeals court reversed it.
Corcoran exhausted his appeals in 2016. He’s one of eight people on Indiana’s death row.
Corcoran’s legal team makes mental health argument
In a statement Indiana Abolition Coalition president David Frank read on the statehouse steps Sunday, Corcoran’s legal team argued that this death penalty sentence would not have happened if not for Corcoran’s mental illness.
Corcoran’s refusal to accept either of the prosecutor’s plea bargains ― a guilty plea in exchange for life without parole or a bench trial without the death penalty ― was a “product” of his mental illness, they wrote. They described intense delusions and hallucinations they said he experienced as a result of his paranoid schizophrenia and said friends and neighbors noticed “strange behavior” long before his trial, including seeing him talking to himself and nodding his head.
“He views his execution not as a punishment but as a means to escape his constant suffering,” the statement read. “This is a product of his irrationality, not an indication of his competency.”
Two of Indiana’s neighboring states, Ohio and Kentucky, ban capital punishment for those who had a serious mental health condition at the time of their crime.
Protesters receive a message from another inmate on death row
Rejon Taylor, a prisoner on federal death row in Terre Haute, had a message for Sunday’s protestors that Laura Lasuertmer, his minister of record, read aloud.
Taylor wondered if Corcoran, like himself, goes back and forth between wanting to live in bleak conditions or hasten his own death to put an end to it. He wondered if Corcoran also ponders the “absurdity of people protesting his looming death a little too late,” when the help he needed most was during childhood.
“If we as a society fail to embrace our children, including the marginalized and disadvantaged, when they grow older, they will burn society down to feel its warmth,” Taylor wrote. “And your protests at state capitols, or wherever you hold them, will continue in vain, the root issue still unaddressed.”
After the rally, participants lined up to ring a large bell that was originally made in 1992 for the Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty, who would ring the bell every time there was a state execution. In September this year, the state of Delaware repealed its death penalty, freeing up the bell to travel to other states.
On Sunday, the bell’s clang echoed over and over across the lawn of the Indiana Statehouse.
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @kayla_dwyer17.
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WSBT) — New standards are now in place for Indiana schools to request four day school week waivers.
Operation Education told you about the pilot program at Vinton Elementary near Lafayette back in 2024.
Operation Education: Indiana elementary pilots 4-day school week
That pilot program ends next spring.
It is the only school in Indiana operating on a four day week schedule.
The state’s new standards mean schools have to earn an “A” grade to be considered.
They also have to offer transportation for students who choose to attend a school on a five day schedule, pay teachers at least $45,000 a year, and offer enrichment and remediation at no cost to parents on the fifth day.
The State Board of Education would then decide if the school can move to a four day week.
More than 800 schools nationwide now operate on that schedule.
MONROE COUNTY, Ind. – The ACLU of Indiana filed a lawsuit over what it calls “unconstitutional conditions” at the Monroe County Jail.
This comes after the advocacy group previously suggested it would take legal action to resolve a lengthy dispute over the facility’s safety.
The federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of two individuals currently incarcerated at the jail. It cites chronic overcrowding, deteriorating infrastructure, unsafe living conditions and the county’s inability to remedy the problems.
The dispute originally flared in 2008, when the ACLU of Indiana filed a lawsuit challenging conditions at the jail. That led to a 2009 settlement in which county officials promised a long-term solution. Over the years, the deadline for improvements has been extended multiple times.
While the county appeared to embrace a brand-new justice complex near I-69 and State Road 46, those plans stalled when the county council voted down the project due to cost concerns.
The ACLU said the settlement has expired and the original lawsuit has been dismissed, necessitating the filing of a new one. The lawsuit claims conditions at the jail violate the 14th Amendment rights of people awaiting trial and 8th Amendment rights of people held after conviction.
The lawsuit names the Monroe County Council, Monroe County commissioners and Monroe County sheriff as defendants.
In a news release, the ACLU cited several problems at the jail, ranging from overcrowding to “extreme temperatures, broken plumbing, mold, crumbling walls, limited disability access, and failures to safely separate people with different medical and security needs.”
Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU of Indiana, said officials have had long enough to fix the numerous issues.
“They have had nearly two decades to find a lasting solution, yet people are still being held in unconstitutional conditions that threaten their health and safety,” Falk said in a statement. “Studies have documented that the jail is dangerous and inadequate, and the sheriff has been candid about its many problems. However, the sheriff’s role under Indiana law is limited, and the county officials who could solve this problem have not listened.”
The ACLU is asking the court to certify the case as a class action and seeks a permanent injunction “requiring defendants to take all steps necessary to ensure that the conditions of confinement at the Monroe County Jail comply with the United States Constitution,” among other relief.
FOX59/CBS4 reached out to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office regarding this lawsuit. Officials with the office stated that they are “declining to comment on pending litigation.”
Read the full complaint here.
Coal ash pollution in the Town of Pines Part 2
Town of pines residents Cathi Murray and Retired EPA Scientist Larry Jensen take us on a tour of pollution in the Town of Pines Ind.
Indiana has more than 100 coal ash sites − more than any other state − and state officials are looking to create a permitting program for the hazardous waste just as the federal government is proposing to roll back cleanup requirements.
The program would be one of the few in the country mandating utilities apply for a permit to dispose of and manage coal combustion residuals in what are known as impoundments or ponds.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management on June 26 applied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking for approval to oversee disposal and management of the waste power plants create after they burn coal to produce electricity.
Coal ash contains pollutants such as arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury and other heavy metals linked to cancer, heart disease and reproductive failure. These hazardous substances can contaminate groundwater and blow around as dust if utilities do not properly dispose of them.
Since 2015, the EPA has set federal requirements for proper disposal and management of coal ash, adding regulations in 2024. IDEM’s application would shift oversight responsibility for coal ash dumps from the federal government to the state.
But as the request wends its way through the approval process, questions remain about how protective a program would be as the Trump administration rolls back safeguards for human health and the environment near coal ash disposal sites.
Indiana to be early adopter of coal ash permits
Gov. Mike Braun said in a news release dated June 30 that Indiana is taking early and decisive action to create the permitting program.
Only five other states (Georgia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming) have created coal ash permit programs of their own. Two others (Virginia and Louisiana) have similar applications pending with the EPA.
Brian Wolff, the assistant commissioner for IDEM’s Office of Land Quality, said he and others at the state agency have worked with staff at EPA to help ensure the application’s success.
“We are not flying blind,” Wolff said, “we are fairly confident within three months we will at least have a notification the application is complete and accepted and put up for public comment.”
The program, if accepted, would be the largest in the country due to the sheer number of coal ash sites in Indiana, Wolff said.
“We have a lot of coal facilities but then a lot of them have multiple impoundments. And each one has to get its own permit issuance for closure,” Wolff said.
If the application proves successful, the permitting program will have nine full-time employees with support from other branches within the department. Fees for the coal ash site permits and other certifications will fund the program, according to IDEM’s application.
Federal changes concern local advocates
The process to get the application completed began with a 2021 bill requiring IDEM to make rules around coal ash permitting in the state. IDEM’s Environmental Rules Board gave the green light in December 2025 and the department sent its application at the end of June 2026.
Indra Frank, coal ash advisor with the Hoosier Environmental Council, has been following the process from the beginning and has some concerns.
Frank said she is keeping an eye on the federal changes EPA is proposing to coal ash requirements that could affect Indiana’s program.
Indiana law says IDEM cannot create rules for coal ash that are more stringent than federal rules. Federal law doesn’t allow states to create rules less stringent than federal regulations, so the potential state-run program will follow EPA’s guidance.
“Right now, the federal rule is in good shape: it has provisions in place that protect human health and environment,” Frank said. “The problem will come as EPA has proposed some really lousy provisions to the rule and if they go ahead and move forward, then Indiana will also have those provisions.”
The specifics of how federal changes might affect a state program are still unclear.
Federal change could create a weird patchwork of regulations for a while before the situation solidifies, which may frustrate residents near these coal ash sites who are eager for intervention, said Gavin Kearney, an attorney with the national advocacy group Earthjustice.
“Imagine a concerned community trying to figure out what a permit is actually trying to do and who is responsible for it,” Kearney said. “It adds up to a lot of confusion and makes it hard for folks to understand if their water is being protected and what to do to address those concerns.”
IDEM’s Wolff said if EPA approves the state program, the permits will offer some stability even if federal rules change once more in the future.
“Once we issue permits for closures (of a coal ash site), it’s kind of locked in to conform to the requirements within the permit,” Wolff said. “That kind of takes you away from the shifting winds of politics however it swings.”
IDEM would likely have to adopt a rule change if certain federal proposals do move forward, said agency spokesperson Allen Carter. That would be a routine process and would not interrupt the permitting program while changes are under review.
Public still has opportunity to provide input
The EPA has up to 180 days to review IDEM’s application. If approved, it will go through a hearing process with public comment.
Earthjustice’s Kearney said the EPA has shown an interest in expediting state-run coal ash permitting programs and the process is likely to move quickly.
IDEM’s Wolff also was optimistic EPA would turnaround the application quickly, estimating a decision could come early next year since the state agency worked closely with EPA to provide all the necessary information.
Karl Schneider is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach him at karl.schneider@indystar.com. Follow him on BlueSky or Twitter @karlstartswithk
IndyStar’s environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
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