• After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Arizona’s death penal­ty statute in Ring v. Arizona, the state leg­is­la­ture met in a spe­cial ses­sion to amend the state’s death penal­ty law to pro­vide that jurors, not judges, impose death sen­tences. The bill passed and was signed by Governor Jane Hull. (Tucson Citizen, edi­to­r­i­al, August 6, 2002)
  • In April 2001, Governor Jane Hull signed a law ban­ning the exe­cu­tion of those with men­tal retar­da­tion. The leg­is­la­tion sets gen­er­al guide­lines for a judge to weigh the men­tal capac­i­ty of a defen­dant with men­tal retar­da­tion. If the judge deter­mines that the defen­dant is suf­fi­cient­ly chal­lenged, the pros­e­cu­tion would be pro­hib­it­ed from seek­ing the death penalty.
  • A com­mis­sion appoint­ed last year by Attorney General Janet Napolitano to study how cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is admin­is­tered in Arizona released an inter­im report of their find­ings. The com­mis­sion, which includes pros­e­cu­tors, defense attor­neys, judges, vic­tim advo­cates, and oth­ers, reviewed 230 cas­es involv­ing the death penal­ty and offered sev­er­al sug­ges­tions for improv­ing the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, including: 
    • Create a statewide pub­lic defend­er’s office to rep­re­sent defen­dants in death penalty cases.
    • Commute death sen­tences to the max­i­mum prison sen­tence pos­si­ble when a defen­dant is found men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent after a death war­rant is issued.
    • Prohibit the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers and the mentally retarded.

The ban on exe­cut­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed was signed into law ear­li­er this year, and Napolitano said she backed most of the oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions, say­ing, ​“If the state wants to con­tin­ue to have the death penal­ty, they bet­ter fund some of these things.” Read the report. (Associated Press, 8/​4/​01)