December 6, 2024 // National

ICC Backs Legislation to Abolish Death Penalty in Indiana

Natalie Hoefer

The Criterion

With Indiana’s first state execution in 15 years scheduled to take place on Wednesday, December 18, the Indiana Catholic Conference (ICC) is already working to promote legislation for the 2025 General Assembly – set to begin on Wednesday, January 8 – that would eradicate the death penalty in Indiana.

Indiana Representative Bob Morris, who represents much of northern Fort Wayne in the statehouse, “will file a full death penalty repeal bill that will have the option of life without parole,” said Alexander Mingus, executive director of the ICC, which serves as the public policy voice for the Church in Indiana. Morris, a Catholic, designed the bill to adhere to Church teaching, which opposes the death penalty.

“Our effort now is to determine the appetite in the House for looking at a bill like this,” Mingus said.

He notes that there have been only two bills related to the death penalty proposed in the past decade – one in 2017 to create a mental illness exception and one in 2021 to reserve the sentence to cases of multiple murders or the death of a police officer.

“Neither bill went anywhere,” Mingus said. “So, we don’t have a full picture of where current legislators stand on the death penalty because there’s no voting record. And there’s not much on record for how someone feels on the death penalty.”

To identify where state legislators side on this issue, he said the ICC is “working with partner organizations,” including the Indiana Public Defense Council and the Indiana Abolition Coalition, as well as national groups like Catholic Mobilizing Network and Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

“It’s still early in the process,” says Mingus. “But this is going to be a topic we’ll be hitting pretty hard this year for a number of reasons.”

One of those reasons is the Church’s opposition to capital punishment.

Prior to 2018, the Church allowed for the death penalty in extreme circumstances for the protection of others, as outlined in Paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In 2018, Pope Francis issued a change to No. 2267 – and to the Church’s stance on capital punishment.

All death penalty was declared inadmissible because “the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” and “more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

The change was not based on the current pontiff’s judgment alone.

“Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis have argued against the use of capital punishment, pointing out the security of modern prison systems as well as the impact of capital punishment on society and humanity,” said Archbishop Charles C. Thompson.

“Pope Francis has used words like ‘inadmissible,’ ‘contrary to the Gospel,’ ‘an attack on the dignity of the human person,’ ‘fostering vengeance rather than justice,’ and ‘a poison for society’ in describing the death penalty.

“While our first concern is for victims and their families, as well as protection for all those in society, the death penalty is not the solution. It cannot bring back loved ones, heal wounds of loss, or bring justice to the victims.”

Archbishop Thompson also noted the negative impact of capital punishment on prison personnel, witnesses, and families.

“Violence often begets more violence, whether criminal or regulated,” he says.  “We are better than this.”

A more pressing issue for the ICC to promote a bill eradicating capital punishment in Indiana (while allowing life without parole) is the June 26 announcement by Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita of the resumption of the death penalty in Indiana.

While several federal executions took place at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute in 2020, the last state-ordered execution occurred in 2009.

In a December 11, 2019, Indianapolis Star article, the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC) stated the reason for the hiatus was “the result of business decisions by pharmaceutical suppliers who now decline purchase requests” from the agency.

The supply issue recently changed. The June 26 statement noted the DOC’s acquisition of the drug pentobarbital for carrying out executions.

“Accordingly, I am fulfilling my duties as governor to follow the law and move forward appropriately in this matter,” Governor Holcomb said in the statement.

On September 24, the Indiana Supreme Court set a date for the first of the executions. Joseph Corcoran – a Fort Wayne man convicted in 1997 of murdering four people, including his brother – is set to be executed on December 18 at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

While a stay of execution could be ordered, regardless of the outcome, the state’s resumption of executions adds urgency to the ICC’s efforts to promote legislation in the upcoming General Assembly that would abolish the death penalty in Indiana.

Governor-elect and current U.S. Senator Mike Braun has not issued comments regarding the resumption of state executions. Nor do his gubernatorial campaign or senate websites state his view on capital punishment.

However, according to Braun’s comments in an April 19 Indiana Capital Chronicle article, he does support the death penalty “for those guilty of the most heinous of crimes.” 

Mingus said those involved in efforts to repeal Indiana’s death penalty are praying.

“We’re praying for hearts to be moved – of our current governor, our new governor and our legislators; for them to turn it over in their mind if this is something they’re OK with the state doing; and for them to consider the fundamental question: Can the death penalty be justly administered in our current context?

“We say no.”