PHOENIX - Aaron Gunches is telling the Arizona Supreme Court he is ready to die.

In a hand-written legal brief, Gunches, who had pleaded guilty to the 2002 first-degree murder and kidnapping of Ted Price, told the justices he wants them on Wednesday to issue the legally necessary warrant to execute him.

Gunches said that will give the state Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry sufficient time to prepare the lethal drug and have it tested. Referring to himself in the third person in the filing, he told the justices that will set the stage for execution on Feb. 14, "where Gunches may have his long-overdue sentence carried out.''

And he pointed out that date is within the 45-day window between the time the drug is compounded and it is no longer considered useful.

Attorney General Kris Mayes already was headed in that direction, having asked the state's high court to set a briefing schedule to get the warrant of execution. Gunches, who had made an initial request more than two years ago to be executed - before Mayes took office in January 2023, told the justices all that is unnecessary.

"Gunches asks this court why is AG Mayes' motion necessary?'' he wrote. "It is pointless and just more 'foot dragging' by the state.''

Mayes, in her own filing, insists that additional time is necessary.

"A briefing schedule is important to ensure ADCRR can meet all execution-related requirements such as disclosures and testing obligations regarding the compounded pentobarbital that will be used,'' wrote Jason Lewis, the deputy solicitor general on her behalf.

"That is not true,'' Gunches responded.

"ADCRR Director (Ryan) Thornell is using the exact same compound laboratory and the exact same drugs used by the previous ADCRR director,'' he said.

And Gunches said that Thornell has said he has corrected any problems that occurred in the three prior executions where there were issues, including the inability to place the required intravenous line into the inmate - issues that led Gov. Katie Hobbs to hire retired federal magistrate David Duncan as a "death penalty commissioner'' to review execution practices and Mayes to suspend all executions.

All that, said Gunches, came to naught.

"Two long years later, Gov. Hobbs fired him stating ADCRR Director Thornell had remedied all the problems and Gunches' execution can go forth,'' he wrote. Any further delay, Gunches told the justices, is unnecessary.

"This sentence is long overdue and should not be delayed any further,'' he said. "Let the laws of Arizona finally be followed and justice served.''

He may not get his wish of a Feb. 14 execution.

Mayes, in her own filing, is telling the court she still wants a full-blown briefing schedule to ensure corrections officials are in fact ready to carry out the execution.

Gunches' convictions were affirmed but the death sentence initially was thrown out. A new jury, however, reinstated the death penalty.

Gunches waived his right to post-conviction review and in November 2022 filed a motion on his own behalf seeking an execution warrant. That was joined the following month by then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

But by that time Brnovich was set to leave office by the end of the month.

That left Mayes in charge who, after Gunches withdrew his request, sought to withdraw the warrant.

The high court refused.

Only thing was, the warrant - which has a fixed time limit - expired before the execution was carried out. And Mayes refused to seek a new one while Duncan's study was going on.

If and when Gunches is put to death, it would be the state's first execution since 2022 when three inmates were given lethal injections. Price, Gunches' victim, was his girlfriend's ex-husband. He was killed near Mesa.

Prior to that there had been an eight-year pause following the botched procedure when Joseph Wood was given 15 does of a two-drug combination over two hours.

Gunches is one of 111 inmates on death row. Of that, 25, including Gunches, have exhausted or waived all appeals.

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