U.S. Supreme Court Denies Stay, AZ Inmate Put To Death Wednesday

PHOENIX, AZ — Death row inmate and convicted murderer Clarence Dixon was put to death at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. He was killed by a lethal injection of pentobarbital.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday morning denied a last minute attempt to stop Dixon's execution.

Dixon was convicted in 2008 of the 1978 rape and murder of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin. Dixon, 66, killed Bowdoin in her apartment in Tempe, according to prosecutors.

“Prosecutors have a solemn responsibility to speak on behalf of all victims, and especially for those who can no longer speak for themselves,” said Attorney General Mark Brnovich in a statement issued after the execution on Wednesday. “My focus was on securing justice for Deana Bowdoin, her family, and our communities, and that has been achieved today.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Tuesday evening denied Dixon's appeal, agreeing with the lower court that Dixon was competent to face execution despite his schizophrenia diagnosis.

Dixon was the first person executed in Arizona since 2014, when the state put Joseph Wood to death. Wood — whom prosecutors said murdered his former girlfriend and her father in Tucson in 1989 — was executed through a series of lethal injections his lawyers said were botched. Wood died around two hours after his initial injection and was ultimately given 15 doses of the deadly drug, when the protocol at the time called for one dose.

Concern and backlash followed that execution, leading to an 8-year hiatus in executions in Arizona. The state in 2017 entered into a settlement with death row inmates, during which it agreed not to use expired chemicals for lethal injections and to test the chemicals for efficacy prior to executions.

On Monday evening, Dixon's lawyers came to an agreement with the state about the chemicals to be used in Dixon's execution. In Arizona District Court earlier that day, Dixon's lawyer Jennifer Moreno had argued that the batch of pentobarbital meant for the execution had expired and could cause Dixon pain and suffering, violating his constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Lawyers for the state had argued that the pentobarbital to be used in Dixon's execution was not expired, even though when tested its pH was slightly outside the accepted range.

Ultimately, the state agreed to have a new batch of pentobarbital compounded and to refrigerate it until the execution, and Dixon's lawyers said that concession satisfied their complaint to the court and dropped the case. The state was also required to test the new chemicals for efficacy prior to their use, according to the agreement between the state and Dixon's lawyers.

The warrant for Dixon's death was issued April 5, and the run-up to his execution was marked by a blitz of court activity in efforts to get the execution canceled or pushed back.

Dixon's lawyers challenged the makeup of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, saying it was stacked with law enforcement officers when it is only supposed to have two members from any one profession. Currently, three of the four clemency board members are former law enforcement officers.

That challenge was denied when the judge hearing the case ruled that members of law enforcement were not part of a profession.

The clemency board later denied Dixon's plea for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The board ultimately disagreed with Dixon's lawyers, who argued that his schizophrenic delusions made him incapable of fully understanding his execution and the reasons for it. Although Dixon knew he was scheduled to be put to death, his lawyers said he believed it was part of a vast conspiracy involving the U.S. justice system and the judiciary, and not because of the murder.

The clemency board also disagreed with Dixon's lawyers that it was a miscarriage of justice that Dixon was allowed to represent himself during his 2008 trial, despite what his lawyers said was a serious mental illness.

The judge during the trial, along with the clemency board, both agreed that Dixon was competent to represent himself during the 2008 trial. Because Dixon represented himself, and he did not believe that he had a mental illness, the jury did not hear any mitigating evidence about his schizophrenia that might have swayed them to issue a lighter sentence, his lawyers said.

The clemency board voted unanimously to deny clemency.

All of Dixon's lawyers' attempts for appeals to various other county, state, appeals and federal courts were also denied.

Dixon had a history of violence toward women. He was first implicated in Bowdoin's murder through DNA evidence in 2000, when he was already serving seven life sentences for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a Northern Arizona University student in 1985.

In summer 1977, Dixon was accused of hitting a teenage girl that he didn't know over the head with a pipe. He was ultimately found incompetent to stand trial, committed to the Arizona State Hospital for six weeks in late 1977 and released when doctors there said that he had become competent.

On Jan. 5, 1978, then-Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sandra Day O'Connor (later a U.S. Supreme Court Justice) found Dixon not guilty of the assault by reason of insanity. O'Connor ordered that Dixon be committed to a civil institution.

Instead, Dixon he was released with no treatment, supervision or mental health services, his lawyers said. Bowdoin was murdered on Jan. 7, 1978.