Arizona AG takes step toward seeking execution warrant for Aaron Gunches

PHOENIX — Attorney General Kris Mayes took a step toward seeking an execution warrant for convicted murderer Aaron Brian Gunches on Friday.

Last week, Mayes said she would seek to end Arizona’s latest pause on executions. Gunches has been on death row for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, but the state has carried out only three executions in the last decade.

Mayes filed a motion with the Arizona Supreme Court on Friday to establish a briefing schedule for the process of carrying out Gunches’ death sentence.

“This is the first and necessary step toward resuming executions in Arizona,” Mayes told KTAR News 92.3 FM.

Why wasn’t previous execution warrant for Aaron Gunches carried out?

An execution warrant for Gunches was issued in March 2023, but it wasn’t carried out because Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a review of the state’s death penalty protocols shortly after taking office in 2023. Mayes, in turn, 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.

Mayes said the findings of that review gave her the confidence to move forward in the Gunches case.

“We’re doing this because we believe that the Department of Corrections is prepared and ready to to resume executions, and this particular death row inmate has exhausted his appeals. … The death penalty is the law of Arizona, and as the attorney general it is my responsibility to uphold the law,” she said.

Why is Aaron Gunches on death row?

In 2004, Gunches pleaded guilty to murdering Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, two years earlier. He was sentenced to death in 2008 and again in 2013 after the Arizona Supreme Court found an error in the first sentencing proceeding.

However, the state put executions on hold after the 2014 execution of Joseph Wood. Wood’s attorney said the execution was botched after the inmate had to be given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours.

When Mark Brnovich was attorney general, he worked to resume the death penalty. After an eight-year hiatus, the state carried out the death sentence for three inmates in 2022: Clarence Dixon, Frank Atwood and Murray Hooper.

In November 2022, Gunches asked the state Supreme Court to issue a death warrant in his case, saying he wanted justice to “be lawfully served and give closure to the victim’s family.” A month later, Brnovich requested a warrant of execution.

However, Gunches withdrew his request in January 2023, citing three recent executions that were “carried out in a manner that amounts to torture” in a handwritten letter to the high court.

The Supreme Court, however, said it was compelled to grant the warrant because Gunches had exhausted his appeals. But Hobbs and Mayes put that on hold until they were satisfied the state could complete the process without the problems seen in past cases.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Heidi Hommel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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