Botched Executions Prompt New Arizona Governor and Attorney General to Halt Executions Pending Independent Review of State’s Execution Process

Executions in Arizona are effec­tive­ly on hold after Governor Katie Hobbs (pic­tured) ordered a review of the state’s exe­cu­tion process fol­low­ing three botched exe­cu­tions in 2022 and Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a motion to with­draw the state’s only pend­ing request for a death war­rant. The two state offi­cials, elect­ed in the November midterm elec­tions against oppo­nents who false­ly claimed the 2020 Presidential elec­tion had been stolen, said their actions will help ensure trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty in the state’s use of the death penalty.

In an exec­u­tive order issued on January 20, 2023, Governor Hobbs said she would be appoint­ing a Death Penalty Independent Review Commissioner ​“to review and pro­vide trans­paren­cy into the [Arizona Department of Correction, Rehabilitation & Reentry’s (ADCRR)] lethal injec­tion drug and gas cham­ber chem­i­cal pro­cure­ment process, exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, and staffing considerations.” 

Arizona resumed exe­cu­tions in 2022 after an eight-year hia­tus. The July 23, 2014 exe­cu­tion of Joseph Wood was botched, tak­ing near­ly two hours, with wit­ness­es report­ing that Wood gasped and snort­ed more than 600 times. As Arizona offi­cials attempt to restart exe­cu­tions, they spent $1.5 mil­lion to obtain lethal injec­tion drugs, even as ADCRR was being held in con­tempt by a fed­er­al judge for fail­ing to redress inhu­mane prison con­di­tions and to pro­vide basic nutri­tion­al needs to pris­on­ers in soli­tary con­fine­ment. ADCRR also refur­bished its gas cham­ber and spent more than $2,000 to acquire ingre­di­ents to exe­cute pris­on­ers with cyanide gas, the same gas used by the Nazis to mur­der more than one mil­lion men, women, and chil­dren dur­ing the Holocaust. After replac­ing the seals and gas­kets of the 70-year-old gas cham­ber, cor­rec­tions staff then test­ed the cham­ber for air­tight­ness by pass­ing the flame of a can­dle slow­ly near the seals of the chamber. 

In April 2021, then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich sought death war­rants to exe­cute Clarence Dixon and Frank Atwood and urged the Arizona Supreme Court to set expe­dit­ed fil­ing dead­lines so the courts could review the pris­on­ers’ chal­lenges to Arizona’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col in what he false­ly claimed was a 90-day win­dow before the drugs ADCRR had pur­chased went bad. After learn­ing that the drugs would actu­al­ly expire in 45 days, the court reject­ed the motion. Death war­rants were sub­se­quent­ly issued for three pris­on­ers in 2022, but ADCRR botched all three. Reporters and defense attor­neys crit­i­cized the state’s secre­cy poli­cies for con­tribut­ing to the prob­lems in the exe­cu­tions of Clarence Dixon, Frank Atwood, and Murray Hopper.

The governor’s exec­u­tive order not­ed that ​“Arizona has a his­to­ry of exe­cu­tions that have result­ed in seri­ous ques­tions about ADCRR’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols and lack of trans­paren­cy” and that ​“a com­pre­hen­sive and inde­pen­dent review” was nec­es­sary ​“to ensure these prob­lems are not repeat­ed in future executions.”

Hobbs’ order requires that the Independent Review Commissioner ​“shall not be cur­rent­ly or pre­vi­ous­ly employed with the ADCRR and shall have expe­ri­ence with death penal­ty or lethal injec­tion issues.” ​“With the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry now under new lead­er­ship,” she said, ​“it’s time to address the fact that this is a sys­tem that needs bet­ter over­sight on numerous fronts.”

Attorney General Kris Mayes applaud­ed Hobbs for order­ing the appoint­ment of a inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion­er. ​“If Arizona is going to exe­cute indi­vid­u­als, it should have a sys­tem for doing so that is trans­par­ent, account­able, and car­ried out in a man­ner faith­ful to our con­sti­tu­tion and the rule of law,” Mayes said. ​“I look for­ward to work­ing with the gov­er­nor, the new­ly estab­lished com­mis­sion­er, and oth­ers to ensure the pub­lic’s con­fi­dence in Arizona’s cap­i­tal punishment system.”

Mayes said she will not seek exe­cu­tion dates while the new com­mis­sion­er is review­ing the state’s death penal­ty process and filed a motion in the Arizona Supreme Court to with­draw a motion filed by her pre­de­ces­sor to set an exe­cu­tion date for Aaron Gunches. In the motion she wrote that pros­e­cu­tors had sought an exe­cu­tion date after Gunches had asked to be exe­cut­ed and Gunches, after learn­ing of the state’s botched exe­cu­tions had asked the with­draw his request. “[B]ecause a thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Arizona is war­rant­ed before fur­ther war­rants of exe­cu­tion are sought,” Mayes wrote, ​“the State moves to with­draw its motion seek­ing issuance of a war­rant of exe­cu­tion in this case.”

Dale Baich, who teach­es death penal­ty law at Arizona State University and pre­vi­ous­ly served as chief of the Arizona fed­er­al defender’s cap­i­tal habeas unit, told the Associated Press, ​“These prob­lems go back more than a decade. The depart­ment of cor­rec­tions, the gov­er­nor and the attor­ney gen­er­al (in past admin­is­tra­tions) ignored the issues and refused to take a care­ful look at the prob­lems. Gov. Hobbs and Attorney General Mayes should be com­mend­ed for tak­ing this matter seriously.”

Arizona’s three exe­cu­tions in 2022 were among sev­en that were vis­i­bly prob­lem­at­ic. More than a third (35%) of the 20 exe­cu­tions per­formed in the U.S. in 2022 were botched. In Dixon’s exe­cu­tion, prison per­son­nel failed for 25 min­utes to set an intra­venous line in his arms before per­form­ing a bloody and appar­ent­ly unau­tho­rized ​“cut­down“ pro­ce­dure to insert the IV line into a vein in his groin. In what Arizona Republic reporter Jimmy Jenkins called a ​“sur­re­al spec­ta­cle,” Atwood helped prison offi­cials find a suit­able vein for the IV line dur­ing his exe­cu­tion. Jenkins wrote, ​“I have looked behind the cur­tain of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and seen it for what it tru­ly is: a frail old man lift­ed from a wheel­chair onto a hand­i­cap acces­si­ble lethal injec­tion gur­ney; ner­vous hands and per­spir­ing faces try­ing to find a vein; nee­dles punc­tur­ing skin; liq­uid drugs flood­ing a man’s exis­tence and drown­ing it out.” After ques­tion­ing what was tak­ing the exe­cu­tion team so long to set an IV line, Hooper report­ed­ly turned to the wit­ness­es and asked, ​“Can you believe this?” Executioners even­tu­al­ly resort­ed to insert­ing the IV in Hooper’s femoral vein in the groin area.

Arizona joins Alabama, Ohio, and Tennessee in paus­ing exe­cu­tions as a result of lethal-injection problems.