On Wednesday, State of Arizona executed its first prisoner since 2014, a man convicted of killing a student more than four decades ago.
Clarence Wayne Dixon, who was convicted of fatally stabbing and strangling Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin in 1978, was executed by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence, Arizona, at 10:30 a.m. local time, according to Frank Strada, deputy director of the state’s department of corrections.
Dixon maintained his innocence and challenged a US Supreme Court ruling that allowed his execution to proceed, according to Strada.
We spoke to a small group of protesters outside the Florence prison who travel the country protesting executions. @azfamily @morganloewcbs5 pic.twitter.com/sbhoe3tTPh
— Cody Lillich (@CodyLillich) May 11, 2022
The US Supreme Court refused Dixon’s lawyers’ appeal for a stay of execution based on insanity without explanation on Wednesday.
It was the first time Arizona had carried out a death sentence since Joseph Wood’s execution in 2014 when a two-drug cocktail injection took over two hours to take effect, and witnesses reported he snorted and gasped before dying. Wood was unconscious and never in agony, according to corrections officials.
Following that, Arizona ceased executions. A federal judge approved broad changes to the state’s death penalty practices in 2017, including an agreement to stop employing certain medicines.
The state stated it will limit the director of the Department of Corrections’ ability to change medicines and give inmates time to object to any modifications.
In recent years, some state governments and the federal government of the United States have struggled to secure pharmaceuticals used in fatal injections, while legal and ethical problems about death punishment abound.
Abraham Lincoln’s assassination: This woman was the first to be executed by US federal government
Dixon was executed in 2008, 30 years after Bowdoin was murdered. The case remained unresolved until 2001 when DNA evidence collected at the scene was linked to Dixon’s DNA. Dixon was serving a life sentence for sexual assault at the time.
Dixon was found mentally fit to be executed by Pinal County Superior Court Judge Robert Olson last week. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the execution of mentally ill people is unconstitutional.
The state utilised a two-drug combination for Wood’s execution that it had never used before.
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