AG Brnovich wants Arizona to resume executions, following federal lead

PHOENIX – One day after the Department of Justice announced that the federal government will resume capital punishment, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said he wants the state to move ahead with the executions of death row inmates.

Brnovich sent a letter to Gov. Doug Ducey on Friday requesting help in obtaining pentobarbital, the lethal injection drug that the DOJ intends to use.

Fourteen death row inmates have exhausted their appeals in Arizona, which hasn’t carried out an execution since 2015.

“Justice must be done for the victims of these heinous crimes and their families,” Brnovich’s letter says. “Those who commit the ultimate crime deserve the ultimate punishment.”

The announcement from @TheJusticeDept establishes that it is now time to resume executions in Arizona. Justice must be done for the victims of these heinous crimes and their families. Those who commit the ultimate crime deserve the ultimate punishment. https://t.co/waTyKWoUn6 pic.twitter.com/ufVyRwGLdw

— Mark Brnovich (@GeneralBrnovich) July 26, 2019

Executions in Arizona were put on hold after the July 2014 death of Joseph Wood, who was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours. His attorney had said the execution was botched.

Wood, 55, was executed for the August 1989 shooting deaths of his estranged girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz, at an automotive shop in Tucson.

In recent years, Arizona and other states have struggled to buy execution drugs after U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products in lethal injections.

Four years ago, the state tried to illegally import sodium thiopental, which had been used to carry out executions but was no longer manufactured by companies approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The state never received the shipment because federal agents stopped it at the Phoenix airport and lost an administrative challenge to the seizure.

In his letter, Brnovich said a Justice Department opinion issued in May concluded the FDA lacks jurisdiction to regulate the importation of lethal injection drugs and thus clears the way for states to import pentobarbital.

It’s unclear where Arizona will get the drugs. A judge ruled in September 2017 that the state does not have to reveal who provides its execution drugs.

Brnovich said the DOJ’s announcement Thursday that the federal government intends to carry out several executions in the coming months suggests the federal government has obtained pentobarbital.

“Regardless of where they go to get the drugs for executions, we expect the state will be transparent about the transactions and how it is spending taxpayer dollars,” said Dale Baich, chief of the unit in the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Arizona that represents inmates in death penalty appeals.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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