Judge rejects Arizona prisoner’s bid to delay execution

PHOENIX — A federal choose has denied an Arizona prisoner’s bid to delay his execution within the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old woman, in response to the ruling posted Sunday.

U.S. District Decide Michael Liburdi’s choice retains on observe Wednesday’s scheduled execution of Frank Atwood, who argued the state’s demise penalty procedures would violate his constitutional proper towards merciless and weird punishment by subjecting him to unimaginable ache.

His legal professionals mentioned Atwood, who has a degenerative spinal situation that has left him in a wheelchair, would bear excruciating struggling if he have been strapped to a gurney whereas mendacity on his again throughout his deadly injection execution.

Liburdi mentioned within the ruling made Saturday that he wouldn’t block the execution primarily based on Atwood’s declare, noting that the state will present Atwood with a medical wedge that can relieve strain on his backbone and may tilt the execution desk. He mentioned these lodging “will decrease the ache Plaintiff experiences when he lies on his again.”

The structure, Liburdi wrote, “doesn’t require a pain-free execution,” and that Atwood’s place might be just like what he usually assumes in his cell to restrict ache.

Liburdi additionally rejected challenges to the drug the state plans to make use of and dismissed Atwood’s declare over the Arizona’s use of the fuel chamber, saying it was irrelevant as a result of he might be executed utilizing deadly injection.

Atwood’s legal professional instantly filed an enchantment to the ninth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals, asking for his execution to be delayed. They argued that whereas he has the flexibility to decide on between deadly injection and deadly fuel, that selection is admittedly no selection in any respect.

That’s as a result of the state’s use of cyanide fuel would additionally trigger excruciating ache, leaving him to decide on between two “torturous” executions strategies. And, they are saying, he’s not allowed to problem the usage of cyanide except he chooses that technique.

Atwood was convicted of homicide within the 1984 killing of Vicki Hoskinson.

Authorities have mentioned Atwood kidnapped Hoskinson, whose stays have been found within the desert northwest of Tucson almost seven months after her disappearance. Consultants couldn’t decide the reason for demise from the stays that have been discovered, in response to court docket data.

Atwood maintains that he’s harmless of the crimes.

Till final month, Arizona went nearly eight years with out finishing up an execution. The hiatus has been attributed to the issue of securing deadly injection medicine as producers refuse to provide them and to issues encountered throughout the July 2014 execution of Joseph Wooden, who was given 15 doses of a two-drug mixture over almost two hours. Wooden snorted repeatedly and gasped earlier than he died. His legal professional mentioned the execution had been botched.

The hiatus ended on Might 11 when the state executed prisoner Clarence Dixon for his homicide conviction within the 1978 killing of Deana Bowdoin, a 21-year-old Arizona State College pupil.

As a part of Atwood’s argument to get his execution delayed, his legal professionals questioned whether or not the compounded pentobarbital for use within the execution meets pharmaceutical requirements and whether or not the state has met a requirement that the drug’s expiration date falls after the execution date.

Prosecutors say Atwood was attempting to indefinitely postpone his execution by way of authorized maneuvers.

Two weeks in the past, Atwood declined to decide on between deadly injection or the fuel chamber, leaving him to be put to demise by deadly injection, the state’s default execution technique.

Arizona, California, Missouri and Wyoming are the one states with decades-old lethal-gas execution legal guidelines nonetheless on the books. Arizona, which carried out the final fuel chamber execution in the USA greater than twenty years in the past, is the one state to nonetheless have a working fuel chamber.

In recent times, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama have handed legal guidelines permitting executions with nitrogen fuel, at the very least in some circumstances, although consultants say it’s by no means been accomplished and no state has established a protocol that will enable it.

Atwood’s legal professionals additionally mentioned Arizona may take up executions by firing squad — a way of execution not used within the state.