PHOENIX — According to a Sunday ruling, a federal judge denied a Arizona prisoner’s request to delay his execution for the 1984 murder of an 8-year old girl.
U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi has ruled that Frank Atwood will be executed on Wednesday. Atwood argued that the death penalty procedures by the state would violate his constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishments, putting him through unimaginable pain.
According to his lawyers, Atwood, who suffers from a degenerative spinal condition and is currently in a wheelchair due to his injuries, would experience excruciating pain if he was strapped to a chair while lying down on his back during the execution of his lethal injection.
Liburdi stated in Saturday’s ruling that he would not block execution based upon Atwood’s claim. He noted that Atwood will be provided with a medical wedge by the state that will relieve pressure from his spine and tilt the execution table. These accommodations will “minimize Plaintiff’s pain when he lies down on his back,” he said.
Liburdi wrote that the Constitution does not require pain-free execution. Atwood’s position in prison will be very similar to what he usually assumes to reduce pain.
Liburdi also dismissed challenges to the drug that the state plans on using and dismissed Atwood’s claim about Arizona’s use the gas chamber. He said it was irrelevant since he will be executed by lethal injection.
Atwood has made a series of last-minute appeals to challenge his execution method. Atwood is also asking for a stay of execution by the Arizona Supreme Court while his lawyers defend his innocence in the killing of the little girl. The court granted a stay to him late last week but is now considering the second claim.
His lawyers continue to dispute the state about religious accommodations before and during his execution. Since he is a practicing member of the Greek Orthodox faith for over two decades, he wants the state’s permission to let him undergo a religious ceremony prior to execution and to receive the last rites in the execution chamber. Although the state has generally agreed to this, there are differences over specific details. This matter is being overseen by a different federal judge.
Joseph Perkovich, an Atwood attorney, stated in an email that “The state’s insistence upon cyanide gas was a cynical decision to force the acceptance and incompetence its lethal injection method at the cost of accepting Nazi methods of mass exttermination.”
Vicki Hoskinson was killed in 1984 by Vicki Atwood.
Authorities believe Atwood kidnapped and murdered the girl. Her remains were found in Tucson’s desert northwest seven months after her disappearance. According to court records, experts could not determine the cause and manner of death from the remains found.
Atwood claims he is innocent.
Arizona had not executed a single execution for almost eight years. This hiatus can be attributed to difficulty in securing lethal injection drug manufacturers refusing to supply them, and problems encountered during Joseph Wood’s July 2014 execution. He was given 15 doses over almost two hours of a two-drug combination. Wood gasped and snorted before he died. Wood’s attorney claimed that the execution was a mistake.
Clarence Dixon, 21, a student at Arizona State University, was executed by the state for his murder conviction in 1978’s killing of Deana Bowdoin.
His lawyers asked Atwood about the pharmaceutical standards of the compounded pentobarbital used in execution and whether the state met the requirement that the drug’s expiration date must be within the execution date.
Prosecutors claim that Atwood tried to delay his execution indefinitely through legal maneuvers.
Atwood refused to choose between gas chamber or lethal injection two weeks ago. He was instead executed by lethal injection as that is the default execution method of the state.
Only Arizona, California and Missouri still have decades-old laws regarding lethal-gas executions. Arizona is the only remaining state with a functioning gas chamber, having executed the last American gas chamber execution more than 20 years ago.
Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have recently passed laws that allow executions with nitrogen gas. However, experts claim it has never been done before and that no state has created a protocol to allow it.
