15 November 2010 :

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong to overturn Joseph Corcoran's death penalty. The ruling said the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, was incorrect in January when it said Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull improperly considered aggravating factors in the 1999 sentencing of Corcoran for the deaths of his brother and three other men. The Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered resentencing, but the Supreme Court vacated – or voided – that decision. The Supreme Court says in its ruling that federal courts did not have the authority to overrule a state's sentence for death in that fashion, writing in its finding: "But it is only noncompliance with federal law that renders a State's criminal judgment susceptible to collateral attack in the federal courts. The habeas statute unambiguously provides that a federal court may issue the writ to a state prisoner ‘only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.'" A jury convicted Corcoran, 35, white, of 4 counts of murder in 1999, when he was 22 years old. He was sentenced to death that same year. In 1997 he shot and killed his brother, James Corcoran; his sister's fiancé, Robert Scott Turner; Timothy G. Bricker; and Douglas A. Stillwell. U.S. District Court Judge Allen Sharp, now deceased, ruled that prosecutors had violated Corcoran's constitutional rights by offering him a deal in which he could waive his right to a jury trial in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. Sharp ruled that Corcoran needed to be resentenced. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Sharp's ruling in 2009, but apparently didn't consider Corcoran's claims that there were errors in sentencing and that the capital-punishment statute is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ordered the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to review that aspect of its decision, resulting in the January 27, 2010 ruling (see). Today the Supreme Court found fault with the reasoning of the Circuit Court.