ARIZ. GOVERNOR BLASTED FOR PLANS TO DEFY ORDER

Hobbs says she won’t carry out inmate’s execution

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing heavy pushback from a victim’s sister and a powerful county prosecutor for her plans to defy a court order to execute a prisoner next month for his conviction in a 2002 killing.

The newly elected Democratic governor vowed nearly two weeks ago that she wouldn’t carry out the

Arizona Supreme Court’s order to execute Aaron Gunches on April 6, citing a review that she has ordered of death penalty protocols due to Arizona’s history of mismanaging executions.

Hobbs has said executions will not be carried out until Arizonans can be confident the state isn’t violating the law. She maintains that while the court authorized Gunches’ execution, its order doesn’t require the state to carry it out.

Over the last several days, lawyers for Karen Price, whose brother Ted Price was the victim in Gunches’ case, and Maricopa County Attorney

Rachel Mitchell have told the state’s highest court that Hobbs doesn’t have the legal authority to ignore the order.

In a statement, Karen Price said the relief her family felt when the court scheduled Gunches’ execution was dashed by Hobbs’ announcement.

“Not only has our family been victimized by inmate Gunches and the emotional aftermath of Ted’s murder, we are now being victimized by the governor’s failure to recognize and uphold our constitutional rights to justice and finality,” Price said.

Nicholas Klingerman, an attorney representing Mitchell,

said no constitutional violations have been found with the state’s execution protocols and that carrying out execution warrants isn’t optional for the governor.

“Nothing in the Constitution or laws of Arizona or the warrant gives the governor discretion to ignore the warrant and grant what essentially constitutes a temporary reprieve from the death penalty,” Klingerman wrote.

Hobbs’ office has declined to comment on the filings by Price and Mitchell and their claims the governor doesn’t have legal power to defy an order to execute a prisoner.

Dale Baich, a former federal public defender who teaches death penalty law at Arizona State University, said Hobbs has “discretion for situations like this, where the governor has expressed legitimate concerns because of the problems with the (lethal injection) drugs, the qualifications of the executioners and staffing at the Department of Corrections necessary to carry out executions.”

Arizona, which has 110 prisoners on death row, carried out three executions last year after a nearly eightyear hiatus brought on by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining execution drugs.

Since resuming executions, the state was criticized in May for taking too long to insert an IV for lethal injection into a condemned prisoner’s body in and for denying the Arizona Republic newspaper’s request to witness the last three executions.

Gunches was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to murder in the shooting death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near Mesa, Ariz.