PHOENIX — Arizona is pausing putting people to death.
Attorney General Kris Mayes on Friday withdrew the state’s legal request for the Arizona Supreme Court to issue a warrant allowing the execution of Aaron Gunches, convicted in the 2002 death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband. More to the point, Mayes told the justices she won’t be seeking any new execution warrants until she gets the findings from a new Death Penalty Independent Review Commissioner being named by Gov. Katie Hobbs.
That commissioner is tasked with conducting a full review of the process, ranging from how and where the state gets its execution chemicals to transparency and media access and the procedures and protocols used by the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry to put condemned inmates to death, including the training of those prison officials involved.
