Arizona sets execution date for murderer of ASU student

An execution warrant for Clarence Dixon was issued by the Arizona Supreme Court, the state attorney general announced Tuesday.

Dixon, 65, was convicted in 2008 for the 1978 murder of Deana Bowdoin, a 21year-old senior at Arizona State University who was found dead inside her apartment with a belt around her neck.

Dixon likely will be the first man executed by the state since the botched execution of Joseph Wood in 2014.

“I made a promise to Arizona voters that people who commit the ultimate crime get the ultimate punishment,” Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement. “I will continue to fight every day for justice for victims, their families, and our communities.”

Jennifer Moreno, Dixon’s attorney, said Arizona has a “history of problematic executions.”

“The State has had nearly a year to demonstrate that it will not be carrying out executions with expired drugs but has failed to do so,” Moreno said. “Under these circumstances, the execution of Mr. Dixon — a severely mentally ill, visually disabled, and physically frail member of the Navajo Nation — is unconscionable.”

The Arizona Supreme Court previously vacated the state’s attempt to schedule executions for Dixon and Frank Atwood in the summer of 2021, after the state admitted it had miscalculated the shelf life of the drugs to be used for lethal injections.

The state’s lethal injection drug mix in 2014 was a cocktail of the Valium-like midazolam and a narcotic called hydromorphone, resulting in Wood’s execution taking two hours. Witnesses said he could be seen repeatedly gasping for

air.

Because the crime Dixon was convicted of occurred before 1992, when Arizona outlawed execution by lethal gas, he has the choice between death by lethal injection or the gas chamber.

According to the warrant of execution, Dixon must “notify the Department of Corrections at least twenty calendar days prior to the date of execution.” If he does not choose, the court said the death penalty “shall be inflicted by lethal injection.”

In March 2021, the Department of

Corrections announced it had acquired pentobarbital for lethal injections moving forward.

Plans to refurbish the state’s gas chamber generated national attention in 2021 after The Guardian newspaper reported the state was planning to kill inmates using “the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz.”

Lawyers for death row inmates believe the state purchased the wrong kind of cyanide, pointing to documents showing Arizona officials purchased a different type of cyanide than what was called for in the state’s newly published protocols for administering a gas chamber execution.

A lawsuit filed in February on behalf of a Jewish community group in Phoenix

is challenging the use of lethal gas in executions in Arizona.

Dixon’s execution will be set for 35 days from Tuesday. The warrant of execution states Wednesday, May 11, 2022, is the “date for commencement of the execution time period when the judgment and sentence of death pronounced upon Clarence Wayne Dixon by the Superior Court in Maricopa County shall be executed.”

Dixon has exhausted his appeals but his attorneys could still file challenges.

In a statement responding the execution warrant, Leslie James, sister of Deana Bowdoin, said, “I will never stop thinking of Deana, but I look forward to resolution of Dixon’s criminal matter through the imposition of punishment.”

James described her sister as “a beautiful person, inside and out.”

“The last forty-four plus years of reliving Deana’s brutal murder as well as enduring the trial and appellate litigation has been nothing short of horrific for our family,” James said. “As victims, the Arizona Constitution guarantees a prompt and final conclusion of this matter.

“Nothing about this case or my experience in the criminal justice system has been prompt,” said James, who also expressed gratitude to the many criminal justice professionals involved in her sister’s case.