PHOENIX – Aaron Gunches, who is scheduled to be executed next week in what would be Arizona’s first use of the death penalty in more than two years, has passed up a chance to ask for a reprieve from his sentence.

Gunches, 53, did not participate in a hearing Monday before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, which noted on the record that he has waived his right to ask for a sentence commutation or a reprieve.

There was no public comment during the minutes-long hearing.

Gunches is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on March 19 for his murder conviction in the 2002 shooting death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near Mesa.

Gunches, who isn’t a lawyer but is representing himself, made an unsuccessful bid late last year to skip legal formalities and schedule his execution earlier than authorities were aiming for. His death sentence was “long overdue,” Gunches told Arizona’s highest court, which rejected the request.

Price’s sister, Karen Price, said Ted was killed because he had threatened to report his girlfriend to child welfare authorities for doing drugs in front of her children.

“Ted wasn’t going to stand for that,” Karen Price said, describing him as a good person with compassion who stood up for people who couldn’t defend themselves.

Price said she isn’t looking forward to Gunches’ execution, but she does want to have “the whole legal system and everything associated with it behind me.”

In a Feb. 20 filing, Gunches said he didn’t want to be present at Monday’s hearing and noted he made a brief virtual appearance earlier before the board to confirm a clemency waiver he made in 2022.

“My position has not changed,” Gunches wrote in the recent filing.

The Arizona Supreme Court issued a death warrant for Gunches nearly two years ago, but the sentence wasn’t carried out because the state’s Democratic attorney general agreed not to pursue executions during a review of the state’s death penalty protocol.

The review ended in November when Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs dismissed the retired federal magistrate judge she had appointed to examine execution procedures.

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