Schizophrenic AZ Death Row Inmate Asks Board, Ducey For Clemency

PHOENIX, AZ — The lawyers representing the first Arizona death row inmate set to be executed since 2014 are asking the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, and Gov. Doug Ducey, to stop the execution, set for May 11.

The man set to be put to death is 66-year-old Clarence Dixon, a diagnosed schizophrenic who was released from a mental institution two days before the murder of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin, according to court documents. Dixon is sentenced to death for Bowdoin's 1978 rape and murder. His clemency hearing is set for Thursday.

Dixon's lawyers argue that his schizophrenia, which was documented by multiple doctors in multiple court proceedings, makes him unable to fully comprehend his sentence or the reasons for it.

"Clarence presents a danger to no one, and were this Board to extend mercy by commuting his death sentence to Life Without Parole, he will continue to be punished for Deana’s senseless murder by spending the remainder of his days in prison," Dixon's lawyers said in his petition for clemency. "Moreover, the spectacle of the State of Arizona sending an elderly, ill, disabled
man to his death will be avoided."

Also asking for a commutation of Dixon's death sentence is Reginald Turner, president of the American Bar Association, a voluntary association for U.S. lawyers aimed at "defending liberty and delivering justice as the national representative of the legal profession."

"The ABA does not believe that justice is served by the execution of a person with serious and longstanding mental illness," Turner wrote in a letter to the clemency board. "As a result, we urge the Board to recommend clemency for Mr. Dixon, allowing Governor Ducey to consider whether Mr. Dixon’s case should proceed to execution."

Dixon's lawyers added that his schizophrenia has gone untreated for decades and that his mental state has continued to deteriorate.

"The death penalty, the ultimate punishment reserved for the most blameworthy who commit the worst actions, does not serve any purpose when it is applied to individuals with severe mental illness. . . [because it] is unlikely to deter individuals with severe mental illness, and it does not serve any retributive purpose," the bar association wrote in a 2016 paper.

Dixon's lawyers previously argued that the makeup of the clemency board itself is illegal. State law says that only two members of any profession can serve on the board at the same time, but three of its four members are retired law enforcement officers. Dixon's lawyers challenged the board's makeup in Maricopa Superior Court, where Judge Stephen Hopkins said in his ruling April 19 that law enforcement was not a "profession."

Dixon's lawyers planned to appeal that ruling.

“Forcing Clarence Dixon to seek clemency from an illegally composed board stacked with law enforcement officers is profoundly unfair,” Joshua Spears, one of Dixon’s attorneys, said in a statement. “But because his mental incompetence, physical disabilities, and traumatic life history present compelling grounds for executive clemency, we must ensure he does not forfeit his opportunity to pursue that relief.”

In their plea to the clemency board, Dixon's lawyers also pointed out that Dixon was allowed to dismiss his attorneys and represent himself in the trial for Bowdoin's murder in 2008, despite ample evidence of his mental illness.

During the trial, Dixon insisted to the court that he was not mentally ill and did not provide evidence of his mental illness or trauma and abuse in his early life that might have impacted sentencing, his lawyers said.

The bar association and Dixon's attorneys pointed out that he had been committed to the Arizona State Hospital for six weeks in late 1977 following an assault in which he hit a teenage girl on the head with a pipe, according to court documents.

On Jan. 5, 1978, then-Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sandra Day O'Connor (and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice) found Dixon not guilty of that assault by reason of insanity. O'Connor then ordered that Dixon be released from the criminal justice system, pending civil commitment to an institution. Instead, Dixon he was released with no treatment, supervision or mental health services, his lawyers said. Bowdoin was murdered on Jan. 7, 1978.

Dixon was not identified as a suspect in Bowdoin's murder until DNA evidence tested in 2001 implicated him. At that point, Dixon was already sentenced to life in prison for the 1985 kidnapping and sexual assault of a Northern Arizona University student in Flagstaff.