First execution in Arizona in 8 years

TUSCON: Arizona was preparing for its first execution since 2014 yesterday, with an inmate convicted of killing a student scheduled to be put to death eight years after the state carried out its last lethal injection, described by lawyers as botched.

Clarence Wayne Dixon, convicted of stabbing and strangling Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin in 1978, was scheduled to die at 10am local time at the state prison in Florence, Arizona.

Lawyers for Dixon asked the US Supreme Court to halt the execution on grounds of insanity, a request which justices denied without explanation.