PHOENIX (Aiexpress) — An Arizona man on death row asked the state’s top court to skip legal formalities and set a date for his execution earlier than what the government wanted. He did this because he wanted his death sentence to be carried out, as he had done before.
Arizona had not used the death sentence for two years while it looked over its procedures. Aaron Brian Gunches’ execution would be the first one since that time.
Gunches asked the state Supreme Court in a handwritten document this week to set his execution for the middle of February for the murder of Ted Price in 2002.
Gunches, who is not a lawyer but is defending himself, said that his death sentence was “long overdue” and that the state was taking too long to ask the court for a schedule of legal briefings before the execution.
Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office wants Gunches to be put to death, and they said that corrections officials need to be given a briefing plan so that they can meet the requirements for the execution, such as testing the pentobarbital that will be used for the lethal injection.
Gunches asked the Arizona Supreme Court two years ago to sign his execution warrant, saying that justice could be done and the families of the victims could find peace.
Gunches was supposed to die in April 2023. But the office of Gov. Katie Hobbs said the state wasn’t ready to use the death sentence because it didn’t have enough staff with the right skills to carry out executions.
Democrats like Hobbs had promised not to carry out any executions until they were sure the state could do so without breaking any rules. The review that Hobbs had asked for ended when she fired the former federal magistrate judge she had chosen to lead it in November.
Price was arrested and charged with murder after being shot and killed near the Phoenix neighborhood of Mesa. Gunches pleaded guilty to the murder charge.
Arizona has 111 people on death row. The state’s last three killings were in 2022, after a nearly eight-year break caused by complaints that an execution in 2014 was botched and problems getting drugs for executions.
Since then, the state has been blamed for taking too long to give a condemned prisoner an IV so that they could be put to sleep.
