AZ Death Row Inmate's Clemency Challenge Denied: To Be Executed May 11

PHOENIX, AZ — A Maricopa County Superior Court Judge on Tuesday rejected a petition from Arizona death row inmate Clarence Dixon, challenging the makeup of the state's clemency board.

Dixon's execution date is May 11, and he's set to go before Arizona's clemency board April 28.

Dixon's lawyers claimed that their client, who is facing the death penalty for the 1978 rape and murder of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin, would not receive a fair hearing in front of a clemency board that was stacked with former law enforcement officers.

While three of the four members of the clemency board are former members of law enforcement, and Arizona law says that no more than two members of any profession are allowed to serve on the board at any given time, Judge Stephen Hopkins said in his ruling that a law enforcement officer was not a member of a "profession."

In his ruling Hopkins said that typically jobs that are considered professions include highly specialized work that require advanced degrees and adherence to a recognized set of professional standards. Examples of jobs that Hopkins said were professions included doctor, lawyer and clergy.

"The Court also notes that the legislature did not use the word 'employment' or 'vocation' or 'job' in connection with the statute," Hopkins wrote in the ruling. "Of course, if the legislature intended to say 'no more than two members of the Board may have prior law enforcement experience' it couldhave easily done so."

Dixon's lawyers have been busy challenging his execution in court since his execution date was set on April 5. They challenged his execution in Pinal County court, claiming that it went against state law to execute Dixon since he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Dixon's lawyers say that he is mentally incompetent to be executed and that he's incapable of understanding the reason for his impending execution.

“Clarence Dixon is a person with serious mental illness as well as blindness and other severe physical disabilities, and his case presents many important factors relevant to a clemency determination," Dixon's lawyer Joshua Spears said in a statement. "He is scheduled to be the first person executed in Arizona in eight years, which means that the Clemency Board as presently constituted has never considered a capital clemency request. Mr. Dixon is entitled to a fair clemency hearing before an impartial Clemency Board that complies fully with state law, not one that is illegally stacked with law enforcement officials. We are reviewing our options to appeal the Superior Court’s ruling."