Critics are swinging back, saying the state is not prepared to follow through, and are demanding accountability.
Arizona has a complicated history with the death penalty, including a botched execution in 2014 which caused condemned prisoner Joseph Wood to gasp for two hours before dying from a lethal injection.
Executions are set to resume in Arizona, and days after being dismissed from a death penalty review by Governor Katie Hobbs, a retired judge is telling his side of the story.
Austin Sarat writes at Slate about three executions over the span of two days–November 16 and 17–were badly botched. In Murray Hooper’s execution, the team could not access a peripheral vein and resorted to accessing his femoral vein in his groin. Arizona law prevents the defense team or the public from learning the identities of the execution team members, who routinely struggle to access peripheral veins, or determining whether they have adequate training.
Jimmy Jenkins of the Arizona Republic also writes about the botched executions and Arizona’s “veneer of medicalization” on lethal injection.
On November 10, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s denial of Mr. Hooper’s request for DNA testing and fingerprint testing. These requests were made pursuant to Arizona’s DNA and forensic testing statutes. Read the decision here.
On November 15, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals also rejected Mr. Hooper’s request for DNA testing, pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which prohibits the appeal of a state court judgment to a federal court. The Ninth Circuit’s decision is available here.
Arizona is set to execute Murray Hooper, age 76, on November 16 at 10 a.m. Mr. Hooper has maintained his innocence for more than 40 years and has requested DNA and fingerprint testing, which the State has opposed. There were significant problems with Mr. Hooper’s trial, including a mistaken identification, the use of paid informant testimony, and significant police misconduct.
Atwood asked the Arizona Supreme Court to review a post-conviction relief petition based on evidence of his innocence, prosecutorial wrongdoing after the Pima County Superior Court denied his post-conviction relief petition
Atwood will ask the Ninth Circuit for a rehearing, following a Ninth Circuit panel’s denial of a preliminary injunction to halt Atwood’s execution related to Arizona’s execution methods
PHOENIX—Attorneys for Frank Atwood today filed a motion with the Arizona Supreme Court asking the Court to review the Pima County Superior Court’s denial of his petition to vacate his conviction and give him a new trial. If the Arizona Supreme Court were to grant review, Mr. Atwood would be able to present evidence of his innocence and that the state withheld evidence implicating an alternate suspect, ultimately stopping his execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday, June 8, 2022.
The petition filed with the Arizona Supreme Court comes a day after attorneys for Mr. Atwood delivered oral arguments before a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, urging the panel to issue a preliminary injunction to halt Mr. Atwood’s execution and compel Arizona to designate a constitutional execution method. The panel denied the request for a preliminary injunction.
See below for statements on both legal challenges.
STATEMENT ON POST-CONVICTION RELIEF BASED ON INNOCENCE CLAIMS, PROSECUTORIAL WRONGDOING:
To be attributed to said Sam Kooistra, counsel for Mr. Atwood:
“We hope the Court intervenes before Arizona executes an innocent man who was convicted in a case haunted by the specter of prosecutorial wrongdoing and an alternate suspect.”
Mr. Atwood has always maintained his innocence but was convicted in a case that lacked hard physical evidence or eyewitnesses. The FBI, which thoroughly inspected Mr. Atwood’s car, failed to find blood, hair, soil, fingerprints or other physical evidence connecting the victim to the inside of the car, which was supposedly used to transport the victim. There were also no eyewitnesses to the abduction. However, several eyewitnesses came forward and pointed police in the direction of another suspect. On the evening of the victim’s disappearance, multiple witnesses spotted the victim, accurately describing her and her distinctive clothing, at the Tucson Mall. According to witnesses, the victim appeared distressed and in the control of an unknown woman. Mr. Atwood’s whereabouts were accounted for during the time of these eyewitness sightings and the timeline police proposed for Mr. Atwood’s alleged actions that day is simply not possible.
Moreover, when police received a highly credible tip linking a third suspect to the victim’s disappearance, the State failed to share that information with Mr. Atwood’s attorney, in direct violation of Mr. Atwood’s right to due process and the prosecution’s corresponding duties under Brady v. Maryland.
STATEMENT ON NINTH CIRCUIT DENIAL OF STAY OF EXECUTION PERTAINING TO ARIZONA’S EXECUTION METHODS:
To be attributed to Joseph Perkovich, counsel for Mr. Atwood:
“A panel of the Ninth Circuit has denied a stay of execution despite grave, persisting problems with the lethal injection method that will be used on Mr. Atwood, a method that, with all that has been evidenced, without refutation from the State, will intentionally inflict extreme pain for what will likely be an hour before, in the best-case scenario, he succumbs to the execution chemicals.
“The panel has also reasoned that because Mr. Atwood failed to designate hydrogen cyanide gas as his choice of execution method, he cannot legally challenge it. The panel ignores the Supreme Court law that, in no uncertain terms, categorically prohibits a legal challenge of a chosen method. Mr. Atwood brought a legal challenge to Arizona’s hydrogen cyanide gas when he was under the execution warrant and the constitutionality of that odious method was in question for him.
“Mr. Atwood will seek rehearing en banc to afford the Ninth Circuit an opportunity to remedy the egregious Catch 22 that the panel determined it had no recourse but to countenance.”
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Atwood is asking Court to halt his execution while it weighs a post-conviction relief petition based on innocence claims, state’s withholding of evidence
PHOENIX—Today, attorneys for Frank Atwood filed a legal motion with the Arizona Supreme Court to stay his execution as the Court weighs a separate petition asking the Court to vacate his conviction and give him a new trial based on innocence claims and the state’s suppression of evidence implicating an alternate suspect.
“Arizona is on the brink of torturing and executing Mr. Atwood for a crime he did not commit and based on a conviction obtained after the state violated Mr. Atwood’s constitutional rights by withholding evidence,” said Sam Kooistra, counsel for Mr. Atwood. “Executing Frank Atwood would be a deep and irreparable miscarriage of justice.”
Mr. Atwood has always maintained his innocence but was convicted in a circumstantial case that lacked hard physical evidence or eyewitnesses. After thoroughly inspecting Mr. Atwood’s car following his arrest, the FBI failed to find blood, hair, soil, fingerprints or other physical evidence connecting the victim to the inside of the car, which was supposedly used to transport the victim. There were also no eyewitnesses to the abduction. However, several eyewitnesses came forward and pointed police in the direction of another suspect. On the evening of the victim’s disappearance, multiple witnesses spotted the victim, accurately describing her and her distinctive clothing, at the Tucson Mall. According to witnesses, the victim appeared distressed and in the control of an unknown woman. Mr. Atwood’s whereabouts were accounted for during the time of these eyewitness sightings and the timeline police proposed for Mr. Atwood’s alleged actions that day is simply not possible.
Moreover, when police received a highly credible tip linking a third suspect to the victim’s disappearance, the State failed to share that information with Mr. Atwood’s attorney, in direct violation of Mr. Atwood’s right to due process and the prosecution’s corresponding duties under Brady v. Maryland.
The motion for a stay of execution was filed the same day as the Phoenix-based U.S. District Court of the District of Arizona is hearing arguments to determine whether to grant a preliminary injunction temporarily halting Frank Atwood’s execution while it determines whether Arizona must designate a new method of execution.
Mr. Atwood has demanded the use of nitrogen gas, a constitutional gas method, but the State insists that it will only use cyanide gas, a barbaric execution method deployed by Nazis during the Holocaust and one that courts have previously rejected.
The Arizona Constitution guarantees a choice between lethal gas or lethal injection. Physically strapping Mr. Atwood, who suffers from a severe form of spinal deterioration, to the lethal injection table will be painful and torturous and carries the threat of a botched execution. Lethal injection is the most frequently botched method of execution, with many recent executions going catastrophically wrong.
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