AZ could soon resume executions after a nearly 2-year hiatus. What to know
Executions could resume in Arizona next year, ending a moratorium that began nearly two years ago.
Upon taking office in January 2023, Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats, suspended capital punishment pending a review of Arizona's death penalty process.
Retired U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan was hired as a commissioner to undertake that review, the scope of which was laid out in an executive order that also called for a written report.
Last week, Hobbs ended Duncan's review, saying she had lost confidence in the effort.
Duncan, in an outline of his report, wrote “that lethal injection while theoretically achievable is, in actual practice, fundamentally unreliable, unworkable and unacceptably prone to errors." He said that opinion could change after speaking with medical personnel who were going to be involved in the state's next execution and watching "a complete rehearsal" of Arizona's lethal injection process.
Hobbs cited an "execution preparedness" review the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry sent her on Nov. 22 as proof the state is ready to proceed with putting prisoners to death.
On the day of Duncan's dismissal, Mayes said she would seek a death warrant for a prisoner in the coming weeks.
Here's what to know about capital punishment in Arizona.
How are executions carried out in Arizona?
Executions in Arizona may be carried out by lethal injection or gas chamber.
Arizona voters abolished the use of the gas chamber after a controversial execution in 1992. It took Donald Harding 11 minutes to die as he cursed and gestured at then-Attorney General Grant Woods. But Arizona law still lets inmates convicted of death penalty offenses before November 1992 choose how they want to die: gas or lethal injection.
The last inmate to opt for the gas chamber was Walter LaGrand in 1999.
In 2021, as the state prepared to resume executions, lawyers for condemned men said state officials purchased a different type of cyanide than the one called for in the state's newly published protocols for administering a gas chamber execution. Officials bought potassium cyanide instead of sodium cyanide.
Ryan Thornell, in his letter to Hobbs summarizing the Corrections Department review of execution procedures, did not mention gas chamber protocols, focusing only on the administration of lethal injections.
Arizona previously used a mixture of drugs to carry out lethal injections but now only uses a compounded form of pentobarbital.
The state has attempted to improperly import execution drugs at least twice, first in 2010 and then again in 2015. The second time, The Republic reported the state paid nearly $27,000 to import a drug that was stopped by federal officials at the airport.
Duncan reported being shown the state's pentobarbital supply in a safe within a Department of Corrections facility but said it was being stored in unmarked jars and that he was not able to verify where it came from.
What happened during Arizona's most recent executions?
After an eight-year pause, Arizona resumed executions in 2022, killing three men: Clarence Dixon, Frank Atwood and Murray Hooper. The state struggled to administer the lethal injection in all three cases.
Attorneys for Clarence Dixon, who was executed in May 2022, said his IV insertion process took 40 minutes. Dixon's execution team resorted to inserting an IV line into his femoral vein, which his legal team said caused him to experience pain and a media witness said resulted in a "fair amount of blood."
The execution team for the June 2022 execution of Frank Atwood also struggled to insert IVs, prompting technicians to consider the femoral vein. However, Atwood asked the team to try his arms again, eventually guiding them to successfully make the insertion into one of his hands.
During the November 2022 execution of Murray Hooper, Hooper turned and asked the viewing gallery, “Can you believe this?” as the execution team tried and failed repeatedly to insert IVs in his arms before inserting a catheter into his femoral vein.
The last execution before the spate in 2022 was conducted in 2014. It took two hours for the drugs to kill Joseph Wood. Witnesses reported watching Wood gasp for air hundreds of times during the execution.
How many people are on death row?
There are currently 111 people on Arizona's death row.
Twenty-five of the people on death row have exhausted all of their appeals, and the Attorney General's Office could seek a warrant for their execution, according to the Attorney General's Office.
The Attorney General's Office said those 25 people have completed the direct appeal of their conviction, their first state post-conviction proceeding and their first federal habeas proceeding, including appeals.
Who can request a death warrant?
The Arizona Supreme Court will decide whether only the attorney general can seek death warrants after Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, forced the issue.
Mitchell, dissatisfied with the suspension of the death penalty by Hobbs and Mayes, in June moved to seek a death warrant for prisoner Aaron Gunches. In response, Mayes said the authority to seek an execution rests solely with the attorney general.
The Supreme Court then, on its own motion, decided to resolve the dispute.
But on the day of Duncan's dismissal, Mayes said she would soon seek a death warrant for Gunches. Now, Mayes believes the conflict before the Supreme Court is moot, according to the representative of her office.
A spokesperson for Mitchell said the county attorney was "monitoring the situation to see what the Attorney General will do."
The death warrant authority issue has been fully briefed and will be placed on a conference calendar for the justices' consideration, a representative for the Supreme Court said.
"At that point, the justices will meet and decide any authority and mootness issues as necessary," said spokesperson Katie Fisher.
Gunches was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of Price, a former longtime boyfriend of Gunches' girlfriend. Gunches kidnapped and shot Price multiple times in a desert area off the Beeline Highway. Gunches has advocated for his execution.
Republic reporter Robert Anglen and former Republic reporter Michael Kiefer contributed.
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