Potential date revealed for Arizona’s first execution since 2022
Jan 9, 2025, 10:39 AM
PHOENIX – Convicted killer Aaron Gunches could be put to death as soon as mid-March under a newly set timeline for Arizona’s first execution in over two years.
The Arizona Supreme Court issued a briefing schedule on Wednesday and rejected a request by Gunches, who is on death row for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, for an expedited process.
On Dec. 6, Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a motion to establish a briefing schedule in the long-running death penalty case.
Gunches, meanwhile, submitted a filing last week seeking a Feb. 14 execution date.
The state Supreme Court reviewed the filings and set the following briefing schedule:
- The state’s motion for a warrant of execution must be filed by 3 p.m. on Friday.
- Responses to the motion are due by 3 p.m. on Jan. 24.
- Replies, if any, must be filed by Jan. 31.
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When will court decide about execution warrant for Aaron Gunches?
The high court is expected to issue a decision about the warrant on Feb. 11.
Under state law, executions must be carried out 35 days after a warrant is issued. Therefore, Gunches’ execution would be scheduled for March 18 if the warrant is granted on Feb. 11, according to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Arizona hasn’t carried out a death sentence since executing three death row inmates in 2022. Those executions ended a nearly eight-year hiatus following a 2014 execution that critics say was botched. The state later had difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs.
Why wasn’t previous execution warrant for Aaron Gunches carried out?
An earlier execution warrant for Gunches was issued in March 2023, but Gov. Katie Hobbs refused to carry it out and won a legal battle to put it on hold.
Hobbs had ordered a review of the state’s death penalty protocols shortly after taking office in January of that year, and Mayes said she wouldn’t seek execution warrants until the review was completed.
Hobbs hired a retired judge to lead the review, but Mayes said he didn’t produce a useful report. However, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry launched its own assessment of the execution process around the same time.
Late last year, Mayes said the findings of the department’s assessment gave her the confidence to move forward with Gunches’ execution.
Gunches originally pleaded guilty in 2004 to murdering Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband. He was sentenced to death in 2008 and again in 2013 after the Arizona Supreme Court found an error in the first sentencing proceeding.
Arizona currently has 111 inmates on death row.
