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Editorial: Unjust death penalty

By Kristin Houle

The following editorial appeared today in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette regarding the case of death row inmate Joseph Corcoran. This year, the Indiana Legislature will consider a bill that would prohibit the death penalty for offenders determined to suffer from severe mental illness.Unjust Death Penalty"Reinstatement of the death penalty against Joseph Corcoran marks another sad twist in a cruel and misplaced effort to extract justice from a mentally ill man. The sentence should again be thrown out on appeal, and Indiana lawmakers, in the meantime, should finally pass a law banning the execution of the mentally ill. Corcoran is a prime example of why such a law is needed. He demonstrated classic signs of paranoid schizophrenia when he shot to death his brother, his sister?s fiancé and two other men in 1997 because he thought they were talking about him...continue to full post

Full post as published by Prevention Not Punishment on January 06, 2009 (boomark / email).