Arizona Sets Expedited Execution Date for Blind, Disabled Prisoner Previously Judged Legally Insane

The Arizona Supreme Court has set an exe­cu­tion date of May 11 for Clarence Dixon, a death-row pris­on­er who is blind and has such severe men­tal ill­ness that he was once judged legal­ly insane. Dixon is a mem­ber of the Navajo Nation, which has long opposed the death penal­ty as incon­sis­tent with its cul­ture and values.

“The state has had near­ly a year to demon­strate that it will not be car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions with expired drugs but has failed to do so,” Jennifer Moreno, one of Dixon’s attor­neys, said. ​“Under these cir­cum­stances, the exe­cu­tion of Mr. Dixon — a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill, visu­al­ly dis­abled, and phys­i­cal­ly frail mem­ber of the Navajo Nation — is unconscionable.”

Dixon had a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of severe men­tal ill­ness before the 1978 mur­der of Deana Bowdoin, for which he was sen­tenced to death. He was charged with an unre­lat­ed assault and found Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity by then-Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sandra Day O’Connor. Due to a fail­ure by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to fol­low Judge O’Connor’s order, Dixon was released just two days before Bowdoin’s mur­der, with­out any super­vi­sion or treat­ment. He was allowed to rep­re­sent him­self at his mur­der tri­al, and the jury nev­er heard evi­dence that he was legal­ly insane at the time of the crime.

On April 8, Dixon’s lawyers filed a motion to halt his exe­cu­tion because of men­tal incom­pe­ten­cy. The motion recounts Dixon’s long his­to­ry of schiz­o­phre­nia and ​“doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of delu­sions, audi­to­ry and visu­al hal­lu­ci­na­tions, and para­noid ideation.” His coun­sel argue that the U.S. Constitution for­bids Dixon’s exe­cu­tion because he does not ratio­nal­ly under­stand the rea­son for his execution.

The motion also chal­lenges Arizona’s men­tal com­pe­ten­cy stan­dard that deems a pris­on­er incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed only if he has a men­tal dis­or­der that ren­ders him ​“present­ly unaware that he is to be pun­ished for the crime of mur­der or that he is unaware that the impend­ing pun­ish­ment for that crime is death.” Dixon’s lawyers argue that this def­i­n­i­tion is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly nar­row, per­mit­ting the exe­cu­tion of an indi­vid­ual who lacks a ratio­nal under­stand­ing of the rea­son for his exe­cu­tion, even though he may be ​“aware” of his crimes and that he is to be executed.

Arizona last car­ried out an exe­cu­tion near­ly eight years ago. On July 23, 2014, the state botched the exe­cu­tion of Joseph Wood III. His exe­cu­tion took two hours, and wit­ness­es report­ed that he gasped and snort­ed more than 600 times. He was giv­en 15 dos­es of mida­zo­lam and hydro­mor­phone, the two-drug pro­to­col used at the time. 

State offi­cials sought to resume exe­cu­tions in 2021, request­ing that the Arizona Supreme Court set an expe­dit­ed brief­ing sched­ule so the courts could review chal­lenges to Arizona’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col and oth­er legal issues in the pris­on­ers’ cas­es in the 90-day win­dow before the pen­to­bar­bi­tal the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) had spent $1.5 mil­lion to obtain went bad. The com­pressed sched­ule was nec­es­sary, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said, for the state to obtain an exe­cu­tion war­rant, have the drug man­u­fac­tured by a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy, get the drug test­ed, and car­ry out an exe­cu­tion before the drug lost its poten­cy. The court set the request­ed sched­ule, but the state then dis­cov­ered that the drug’s shelf life was, in fact, 45 days. Brnovich sought an even more cur­tailed brief­ing sched­ule from the court, but it reject­ed that request.

The state now says it has con­duct­ed spe­cial­ized test­ing on the pen­to­bar­bi­tal, and found its shelf life to be at least 90 days. Dixon is eli­gi­ble to elect lethal gas as his method of exe­cu­tion, but must decide at least 21 days before his exe­cu­tion date, or lethal injec­tion will be used by default. Arizona announced in 2021 that it had ​“refur­bished” its gas cham­ber and spent more than $2,000 to obtain ingre­di­ents for cyanide gas, the same sub­stance used by Nazis to mur­der more than one mil­lion peo­ple dur­ing the Holocaust.

Arizona’s prepa­ra­tions for lethal gas exe­cu­tions prompt­ed a law­suit from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix, argu­ing that exe­cu­tion by gas cham­ber ​“vio­lates the pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment in … the Arizona Constitution.” The law­suit alleges that ​“tax­ing Arizonans, includ­ing vic­tims of the Holocaust, and effec­tive­ly forc­ing them to sub­si­dize and relive unnec­es­sar­i­ly the same form of cru­el­ty used in World War II atroc­i­ties” con­sti­tutes a ​“griev­ous moral and con­sti­tu­tion­al injury.” Oral argu­ment in that case took place the same day Dixon’s exe­cu­tion date was announced. Adam Pié, argu­ing on behalf of the plain­tiffs, said, ​“This sys­tem has cre­at­ed a false choice. What they’ve done is say you can choose the default option, or you can choose a mat­ter of death that has already been found to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” refer­ring to a sep­a­rate rul­ing against California’s use of the method.