INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday denied a stay of the execution of Joseph Corcoran.

The vote ended 3 – 2, with Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Christopher Goff voting to grant the stay.

Corcoran on Dec. 18 faces death by lethal injection after a jury found him guilty in the July 26, 1997 shooting deaths of four men in Fort Wayne. The men included his brother, James Corcoran, 30; his sister’s fiancé, Robert Turner, 32; and two friends of James, Timothy Bricker, 30, and Doug Stillwell.

Corcoran’s attorneys have argued he has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and “cannot distinguish between reality and his delusions and hallucinations.”

State attorneys argued that Indiana’s Supreme Court “has never held that our constitution prohibits the execution of a person based on a mere allegation of ‘severe mental illness.’”

This story has been updated to include the numbers in the vote.

Previous coverage

• Plea to block execution of Indiana death row inmate now in hands of Indiana Supreme Court
• Indiana Supreme Court to decide whether to block execution of Joseph Corcoran
• Indiana death row inmate’s attorneys ask Supreme Court to stay execution
• Religious leaders protest the state’s death penalty
• Indiana Supreme Court sets date for 1st execution since 2009