Arizona AG wants death-row prisoner’s mental fitness exam called off

Prosecutors have requested the Arizona Supreme Courtroom to name off an upcoming listening to scheduled by a lower-court decide to find out the psychological health of a prisoner to be executed in what could be the state’s first use of the loss of life penalty in practically eight years.

Arizona Lawyer Normal Mark Brnovich’s workplace instructed the state’s highest court docket in a submitting Wednesday that the Might 3 psychological competency listening to scheduled in Pinal County for death-row prisoner Clarence Dixon is prone to delay his Might 11 execution. Dixon was sentenced to loss of life for his homicide conviction within the 1977 killing of Arizona State College pupil Deana Bowdoin.

The prosecutors are searching for to throw out the decrease court docket’s order that concluded protection legal professionals had proven cheap grounds for planning a listening to over whether or not Dixon is psychologically match.

Dixon’s legal professionals have stated their shopper erroneously believes he will likely be executed as a result of police at Northern Arizona College wrongfully arrested him in a earlier case — a 1985 assault on a 21-year-old pupil. His attorneys concede he was the truth is lawfully arrested then by Flagstaff police.

Dixon was sentenced to life sentences in that case for sexual assault and different convictions. DNA samples taken whereas he was in jail later linked him to Bowdoin’s killing, which at that time had been unsolved.

His attorneys say Dixon’s lack of ability to differentiate between actuality and fantasy within the case involving an NAU pupil had began to spill into the case over Bowdoin’s killing.

Dixon had fired his legal professional within the case involving Bowdoin’s loss of life underneath an irrational perception that the DNA proof wasn’t admissible within the homicide case as a result of he erroneously thinks the NAU Police Division wasn’t a authorized entity when it arrested him on the sexual assault costs, his present legal professionals have stated.

Prosecutors instructed the state Supreme Courtroom that regardless that Dixon’s attorneys argued their shopper’s give attention to the 1985 sexual assault conviction reveals he was incompetent to say no his proper to a lawyer, the courts in rulings after his homicide verdict “discovered that Dixon’s give attention to that authorized problem, although untenable, didn’t exhibit a scarcity of competence.”

Eric Zuckerman, one among Dixon’s attorneys, stated in an announcement: “The state’s try and overturn the decrease court docket’s correct determination to grant a competency listening to to Clarence Dixon, who has a historical past of schizophrenia and former findings of authorized incompetency, undermines the authorized course of that may decide whether or not executing him would violate the Structure.”

Dixon’s attorneys say placing Dixon to loss of life would violate protections towards executing people who find themselves mentally incompetent. They cited a psychiatrist’s conclusion that their shopper lacks a rational understanding of the explanations for his execution.

Prosecutors stated Dixon’s authorized concept is not legally viable, however argued that his makes an attempt to undo his homicide conviction present he has a rational understanding of why the state is searching for his execution.

Protection attorneys say Dixon has been recognized with paranoid schizophrenia on a number of events, has commonly skilled hallucinations over the previous 30 years and was discovered “not responsible by cause of madness” in a 1977 assault case through which the decision was delivered by then-Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Decide Sandra Day O’Connor, practically 4 years earlier than her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom. Bowdoin was killed two days after the decision, in keeping with court docket information.

Authorities have stated the 21-year-old Bowdoin, who was discovered lifeless in her residence, had been raped, stabbed and strangled. Dixon had been charged with raping Bowdoin, however the cost was later dropped on statute-of-limitation grounds. He was convicted, although, in her loss of life.

The final time Arizona used the loss of life penalty was in July 2014, when Joseph Wooden was given 15 doses of a two-drug mixture over two hours in an execution that his legal professionals stated was botched.

States, together with Arizona, have struggled to purchase execution medicine in recent times after U.S. and European pharmaceutical firms started blocking the usage of their merchandise in deadly injections. Final yr, Arizona corrections officers revealed that they’d lastly obtained a deadly injection drug and had been able to resume executions.

Along with asking the Pinal County court docket for a psychological health continuing, legal professionals for Dixon have filed two different lawsuits over the previous week.

In a single lawsuit, they requested a court docket to bar the Arizona Board of Government Clemency from holding his April 28 clemency listening to, arguing the make-up of the board violates a state legislation limiting the variety of folks from the identical occupation from serving on the board. Three of the board’s 4 present members are retired legislation enforcement professionals, the lawsuit stated.

Dixon’s legal professionals additionally filed a federal lawsuit protesting a number of situations of his confinement for the reason that execution warrant was issued and he was moved to a different cell the place he’s noticed across the clock and has restricted entry to private property.

As of Friday afternoon, no hearings had been scheduled in both lawsuit.

Arizona has 112 prisoners on loss of life row.