PHOENIX (AP) — Executions will resume in Arizona following a two-year pause, the state's top prosecutor says.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Wednesday that she will soon seek an execution warrant for Aaron Brian Gunches, who is on death row after being convicted of killing his girlfriend's ex-husband.
Mayes said her office had been preparing to resume the use of the death penalty in Arizona since earlier this year as it worked with state corrections officials to review and improve procedures.
STATEMENT BY AG KRIS MAYES:
"My office has been preparing since earlier this year to resume executions in Arizona. We have worked with ADCRR throughout its process to carefully review and improve the state’s death penalty procedures, and I am confident that executions can now proceed in compliance with state and federal law. I am grateful to ADCRR Director Thornell for his leadership and the work he has done to increase transparency around the state’s death penalty procedures. Back in May, I indicated that executions would resume by early 2025. In accordance with that timeline, I plan to move forward and request an execution warrant from the Arizona Supreme Court in the coming weeks for Aaron Brian Gunches, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Ted Price.
"Earlier today, I spoke with Ted Price’s family and expressed my deepest condolences for the unimaginable pain they have endured since his murder. I remain committed to seeking justice for the victims of violent crime and their loved ones."
Gov. Katie Hobbs had promised not to carry out any executions until there was confidence the state can do so without violating any laws. The attorney general's office had said it would not seek a court order to carry out the death penalty while a review was underway.
The review Hobbs had ordered effectively ended this month when she dismissed the retired federal magistrate she had appointed earlier to head the review.
The governor's spokesman, Christian Slater, said Hobbs “remains committed to upholding the law while ensuring justice is carried out in a way that’s transparent and humane.”
Corrections officials “conducted a thorough review of policies and procedures and made critical improvements to help ensure executions carried out by the State meet legal and constitutional standards,” Slater said.
The attorney general said in May that executions could resume by early 2025, after the review was completed.
Mayes said that in line with that timeline she will ask the Arizona Supreme Court in the coming weeks to issue an execution warrant for Gunches, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Ted Price.
Gunches had been set to be put to death in April 2023. But Hobbs’ office said the state wasn’t prepared to enforce the death penalty because it lacked staff with expertise to carry out executions,. At the time, it also said it could not find an IV team to carry out the lethal injection and didn’t have a contract with a pharmacist to compound the pentobarbital needed for an execution.
Gunches had pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the shooting death of Price, who was his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.
Arizona last carried out three executions in 202 2 following a nearly eight-year hiatus brought on by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining drugs for execution.
STATEMENT BY PIMA COUNTY ATTORNEY LAURA CONOVER:
“It is reassuring that Governor Hobbs sought a moratorium after Arizona previously experienced botched executions, and it is helpful that Attorney General Mayes and Department of Corrections Director Thornell took a very thoughtful, investigative approach during this moratorium. But now is the time for the Arizona State Legislature to take a hard look at the real-world results in Pima County, having gone four years without seeking a single execution.
"We’ve dealt with a number of devastating and high-profile cases in recent years, and the next of kin in these cases have all experienced a kind of resolution that never-ending death penalty litigation would have robbed them of. Under certain extreme circumstances, we have won convictions and then won our sentencing request for life in prison with no chance for parole, which is in fact a death sentence: a sentence to die in prison. We have saved an absolute fortune in taxpayer money in litigation, staffing, experts, testing, court, and security costs for our own agency, the jail, the courts, and the prisons.
"And most importantly, we stopped tinkering with the machinery of death: a failed system proven to be racially biased, subjective, and dangerous, as our wrongful conviction team knows all too well. Arizona can be so much smarter in its use of precious resources and shut down death row for good. Because we won’t be sending anyone from Pima County, and as years pass, it won’t be an Arizona death row, it will be a Phoenix death row, filled more and more by Maricopa County, adding to the inequity.”
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By Anita Snow (Associated Press)
