Second Execution Within A Month Set For June 8 in Arizona

TUCSON, AZ — Following an 8-year hiatus in executions, a second man is scheduled to be put to death by the state of Arizona within a one-month period.

The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency unanimously voted this week to deny clemency to Frank Atwood, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson in Tucson in September 1984.

Hoskinson was riding her bicycle home after mailing a birthday card to her aunt when Atwood kidnapped her, according to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

Her remains were found in the desert northwest of Tucson around seven months after she disappeared. Experts could not determine what caused Hoskinson's death, because of how decomposed her remains were when they were found.

Atwood was convicted and sentenced to execution in 1987 and in the years since he has challenged his conviction and sentence in state and federal courts, according to the attorney general.

In an independent review of his sentence, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed with the other courts that the death penalty was warranted for Atwood's crimes.

The first person to be executed in Arizona since 2014 was Clarence Dixon, who was put to death by lethal injection on May 11. Dixon was convicted in 2008 of the 1978 rape and murder of 21-year-old Arizona State University student, Deana Bowdoin. He was not identified as a suspect in that case until 2000, when he was implicated through DNA evidence. At that point he was already serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and rape of a Northern Arizona University student in 1985.

Both Dixon and Atwood declined to be executed using Arizona's gas chamber, which was recently refurbished.

Atwood's lawyer, Joe Perkovich, had asked for the gas chamber but requested to use a different gas than cyanide, which is what Arizona uses per its execution protocol. The state refused. Perkovich then requested instead that his client be executed by firing squad, a method of execution that is not an option in Arizona, Fox 10 reported.

In the weeks leading up to his death, Dixon's lawyers filed motions in several courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, in attempts to get his execution delayed or for his sentence to be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

His lawyers said that because of delusions due to schizophrenia, Dixon was incapable of understanding the true reason for his execution, making him mentally incompetent to be executed. They also argued that he should not have been allowed to represent himself in the trial that ended with his death sentence because he was mentally incompetent to do so.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Dixon's request for a stay just hours before he was put to death with an injection of pentobarbital.

The 8-year break in executions in Arizona was not for a lack of inmates on death row, as there are currently 112 inmates slated for execution in the state.

The hiatus was in response to the 2014 execution of Joseph Wood, which his lawyers called botched. After an initial dose of two-drug combination drug didn't kill Wood, he was given 14 more doses over a two-hour period. Executions typically take about 10 minutes, but Wood snorted repeatedly and gasped more than 600 times before he died about two hours after the initial injection.

Criticism following that execution prompted a temporary halt while Arizona worked on its execution protocol. Then Arizona, like other states, had a difficult time finding a company willing to supply drugs slated for lethal injection.

Dixon's execution seemed to follow the state's protocol, but the medical team administering the drug had a hard time finding a vein in which to inject him with the pentobarbital.

First they tried his arms and then made an incision in his groin area. That process took about 25 minutes.

After the drugs were injected, Dixon’s mouth stayed open and his body did not move. The execution was declared completed about 10 minutes after he was injected.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.