Arizona Chooses Former Federal Judge to Undertake Independent Review of the Death Penalty

On February 24, 2023, Governor Katie Hobbs [pic­tured] of Arizona announced the appoint­ment of retired Judge David Duncan, a for­mer fed­er­al mag­is­trate, to lead Arizona’s Death Penalty Independent Review Committee, with all exe­cu­tions to be put on hold in the interim. 

“Arizona has a his­to­ry of mis­man­aged exe­cu­tions that have result­ed in seri­ous con­cerns about ADCRR’s (Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, & Reentry) exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols and lack of trans­paren­cy,” Governor Hobbs said in a press release. ​“That changes now under my admin­is­tra­tion and Director (Ryan) Thornell. A com­pre­hen­sive and inde­pen­dent review must be con­duct­ed to ensure these prob­lems are not repeat­ed in future exe­cu­tions. I’m more than con­fi­dent that Judge Duncan has the exper­tise and abil­i­ty to take on this cru­cial role.” Hobbs said the review will include the lethal injec­tion drug and gas cham­ber chem­i­cal pro­cure­ment process, exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, and staffing con­sid­er­a­tions includ­ing train­ing and experience. 

Duncan stat­ed that he ​“will con­duct an inves­ti­ga­tion, learn and under­stand as much as pos­si­ble, and pro­vide that infor­ma­tion to the gov­er­nor and the cit­i­zens of Arizona… We know that one thing is pret­ty easy to fix, I think. And that is trans­paren­cy… My report will talk about the prob­lems that hap­pened, and try to iden­ti­fy the caus­es. And from that infor­ma­tion, the pol­i­cy­mak­ers, the gov­er­nor, the leg­is­la­ture, and the peo­ple in the depart­ment of cor­rec­tions can maybe hope­ful­ly make deci­sions about how to go forward.”

During 2022, Arizona car­ried out three exe­cu­tions, after an eight-year hia­tus, that were accom­pa­nied by var­i­ous prob­lems, thus prompt­ing the review process. On March 3, Hobbs reaf­firmed the state’s exe­cu­tion mora­to­ri­um despite the Arizona Supreme Court’s sched­ul­ing the exe­cu­tion of Aaron Gunches for April 6, 2023. Hobbs stat­ed: ​“Under my admin­is­tra­tion, an exe­cu­tion will not occur until the peo­ple of Arizona can have con­fi­dence that the state is not vio­lat­ing the law in car­ry­ing out the gravest of penalties.”