Here’s why there have been so few executions in Arizona in last decade

PHOENIX — When convicted killer Aaron Gunches was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday morning, it was the first Arizona execution since 2022 and only the fourth in over a decade.

State officials have been reluctant to carry out the death penalty since the botched 2014 execution of Joseph Wood. Arizona had 111 prisoners on death row after Gunches’ execution.

Wood, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her father in 1989, was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over nearly two hours during his July 2014 execution. The process dragged on for so long that the Arizona Supreme Court convened an emergency hearing during the execution to decide whether to halt the procedure.

2014 Arizona execution prompted lengthy hiatus

The issues with the Wood execution prompted a hiatus that lasted nearly eight years. During that time, the state changed its execution protocols, agreeing to no longer use one of the drugs — midazolam — that was injected into Wood.

In 2022, then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich took action to resume executions. The sentences of three death row prisoners were carried out that year.

The first was Clarence Dixon, who was convicted in the 1978 killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin. Dixon was executed with an injection of pentobarbital under the new protocols in May 2022.

While Dixon’s execution wasn’t as prolonged as that of Woods, experts said the estimated 25 minutes it took medical staff to insert an IV into his body was too long.

Convicted killers Frank Atwood and Murray Hooper were then put to death in April and November 2022, respectively.

Near the end of his term in December 2022, Brnovich requested and received an execution warrant for Gunches, who was scheduled to be put to death in April 2023.

Why wasn’t Aaron Gunches put to death in 2023?

However, Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a review of the death penalty process shortly after taking office in January 2023 and won a legal battle to put Gunches’ execution on hold.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Kris Mayes, Brnovich’s successor, said she wouldn’t pursue execution warrants until the review was complete. The review effectively ended in November 2024 when Hobbs dismissed the retired federal magistrate she had appointed earlier to head it.

In addition to the Hobbs-appointed review, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry launched its own assessment of the execution process around the same time. Mayes said in November 2024 the findings of that review gave her the confidence to move forward in the Gunches case.

Mayes then announced she would seek an execution warrant for Gunches, who was convicted in 2008 for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband.

Hobbs told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Outspoken with Bruce and Gaydos last week the review process gave her confidence that the corrections department was properly prepared to carry out Gunches’ execution.

“I wanted to be able to have a chance for my office, the director’s office to really review the processes that are in place and ensure that we could carry out this ultimate punishment that we’re doing in the name of Arizonans and that whatever we could do to control things that could go wrong, we were doing,” she said.

The Arizona Supreme Court granted the warrant in February of this year, and the execution was set for Wednesday morning, when Gunches was injected with pentobarbital at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. Officials and media observers reported that the process was completed without issue.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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