From Newsweek:
Arizona Supreme Court Sets Deadline For Warrant Seeking Frank Atwood’s Execution
By Khaleda Rahman, May 26, 2021
The Arizona Supreme Court has set a deadline for prosecutors to request a warrant to execute the state’s first death row inmate since a botched execution in 2014.
Arizona’s highest court said prosecutors have until July 21 to request a warrant to execute convicted killer Frank Atwood, 64. The order said the court expects to consider the state’s request on August 24.
The court also rejected Atwood’s request to hear evidence about the execution protocol.
Prosecutors have said the pentobarbital to be used in the execution would expire 90 days after the chemical powder is compounded into an injectable fluid, but Atwood’s attorneys say the drug is unusable 45 days after it is compounded, according to the Associated Press.
Joseph Perkovich, one of Atwood’s attorneys, also said the state should not seek an execution warrant for Atwood “given the persisting serious unanswered questions” about his conviction and sentence.
“Moreover, much more needs to be learned about the compounded pharmaceuticals Arizona plans to use in the numerous executions the Attorney General has stated he expects to carry out,” Perkovich said in a statement to Newsweek.
“Arizona’s courts need to ensure that the state does not attempt executions with inadequate drugs that would fail to take the condemned’s life or would cause severe pain in violation of the Constitution.”
Perkovich said Atwood has been wheelchair-bound for years due to “severely degenerative spinal conditions,” and that it “presents special risks for a failed execution.”
He added: “The state of Arizona’s abysmal track record requires meaningful scrutiny of its plan but, so far, the state judiciary has shown no regard for the gravity of the power that the Attorney General intends to exercise.”
Atwood and Clarence Dixon are the first inmates Arizona is seeking to put to death since the prolonged execution of Joseph Wood in 2014. Wood’s execution took almost two hours, and witnesses reported he gasped and struggled to breathe for much of that time.
Arizona officials had struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs in the years since Wood was executed, but they revealed in March that they had obtained pentobarbital and could resume executions.
Last month, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office announced he had notified the state Supreme Court of his intent to seek execution warrants for Atwood and Dixon, and asked the court to establish a briefing schedule so the office can comply with the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry’s testing and disclosure obligations regarding the drug that will be used in the executions.
“On September 17, 1984, 8-year-old Vicki Lynn Hoskinson rode her pink bicycle to mail a letter and never came home,” Brnovich tweeted Tuesday.
“Today, the Arizona Supreme Court set a briefing schedule for the warrant of execution of the person responsible for her death.”
Arizona’s push to resume executions comes as officials in Texas, the nation’s busiest death penalty state, came under fire after Quintin Jones was executed last week without any media witnesses present.
From KJZZ:
Arizona Supreme Court Sets Execution Warrant Briefing Schedules For 2 Death Row Prisoners
By Jimmy Jenkins, May 25, 2021
The Arizona Supreme Court has set timetables for the state to make its case for conducting the first executions in seven years.
The court granted requests from Attorney General Mark Brnovich to set briefing schedules for pursuing warrants of execution for prisoners Frank Atwood and Clarence Dixon.
Attorneys for Atwood previously asked the Supreme Court to deny the attorney general’s request to set the briefing schedule, citing an ongoing appeal and what they called “unanswered questions” in the case.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Dale Baich, an attorney for Dixon, requested the Supreme Court postpone the ruling on the attorney general’s request for an execution timetable until the fall.
In their recent orders, the Supreme Court denied those requests.
After the attorney general files the motions seeking the warrants, responses from defense attorneys and replies to those responses will be due to the court by Aug. 11 for Atwood and Sept. 2 for Dixon.
Arizona Supreme Court spokesperson Aaron Nash said if the court issues the warrants, “then that moves to that next step that’s in statute, authorizing the director of the Department of Corrections to schedule the execution within 35 days.”
In response to the state supreme court setting the briefing schedule, Atwood attorney Joseph Perkovich said “much more needs to be learned about the compounded pharmaceuticals Arizona plans to use in the numerous executions the Attorney General has stated he expects to carry out.”
“The state of Arizona’s abysmal track record requires meaningful scrutiny of its plan,” Perkovic said. “But, so far, the state judiciary has shown no regard for the gravity of the power that the Attorney General intends to exercise.”
Dixon was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1978 killing of Deana Bowdoin, a 21-year-old Arizona State University student.
Atwood was convicted in Pima County and sentenced to death for killing 8-year-old Vicki Lynn Hoskinson in 1984. Authorities say Atwood kidnapped the girl, whose body was found in the desert northwest of Tucson.
According to the attorney general, there are currently 115 prisoners on Arizona’s death row and approximately 20 have exhausted all appeals.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
From the Arizona Capitol Times:
Executions for 2 inmates draw nearer
By Kyra Haas, May 25, 2021
The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday set deadlines for the state attorney general to file his motions for warrants of execution for two death row inmates.
Those inmates, Frank Atwood and Clarence Dixon, are two of 21 people on Arizona’s death row who the state says have exhausted their appeals.
The last execution in the state was nearly seven years ago, when in 2014 Joseph Wood took nearly two hours to die as he was given 15 doses of the sedative Midazolam and hydromorphone, a painkiller.
The deadlines come after Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich made the unusual request for firm briefing schedules from the state’s high court in April. He said adhering to a set schedule would ensure the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry is able to comply with lethal drug testing and disclosure obligations.
The court’s deadline for the motion for the warrant of execution for Atwood is 5 p.m. July 21. Atwood’s counsel will have until Aug. 4 to respond.
For Dixon, Brnovich has until 5 p.m. Aug. 12 to file his motion for the execution warrant, and Dixon’s counsel has until Aug. 26 to respond.
“An extension will not be granted absent highly extraordinary circumstances,” according to both orders.
The court also denied a habeas corpus petition that Dixon submitted on his own behalf, saying his claims were “factually unsupported, meritless, and precluded.”
Atwood’s attorneys say that the state is “leapfrogging” Atwood to the front of the line of death row inmates who’ve exhausted their appeals, noting that 12 concluded their appeals before Atwood. His attorney Joseph Perkovich said in a statement today that there are “persisting serious unanswered questions” about Atwood’s conviction and sentence and that the state should not seek an execution warrant.
Perkovich also raised questions about the drugs the state plans to use in its executions and questioned the court’s level of scrutiny of the state’s execution plans.
“The State of Arizona’s abysmal track record requires meaningful scrutiny of its plan but, so far, the state judiciary has shown no regard for the gravity of the power that the Attorney General intends to exercise,” Perkovich said in a statement.
ADCRR paid $1.5 million for 1,000 vials of pentobarbital sodium salt in October 2020, according to a heavily redacted document obtained by The Guardian last month. That’s the same drug that was used in federal executions last year. An attempt to import sodium thiopental from India in 2015 ended with Customs and Border Protection seizing the drugs at Sky Harbor International Airport.
From the Associated Press:
Deadline set for seeking warrant for prisoner’s execution
May 25, 2021
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court has set a July 21 deadline for prosecutors to request a warrant that would trigger the state’s first execution in almost seven years.
The state’s highest court said it expects on Aug. 24 to consider the state’s request to execute death-row inmate Frank Atwood.
Atwood and Clarence Dixon are the first death row prisoners in Arizona to be eyed for execution since the 2014 death of Joseph Wood, who was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours. Wood’s attorney said the execution was botched.
Atwood was convicted in Pima County and sentenced to death for killing 8-year-old Vicki Lynn Hoskinson in 1984. Authorities say Atwood kidnapped the girl, whose body was found in the desert northwest of Tucson.
The state Supreme Court also rejected Atwood’s request for a court hearing over prosecutors’ claim that the pentobarbital to be used in the execution would expire 90 days after the chemical powder is compounded into an injectable fluid.
Atwood’s lawyers maintain the drug is unusable 45 days after it’s compounded.
