By Aaron Miller-
A death row inmate in Arizona has two weeks to decide how to be killed for his gruesome crimes of murder. He has the option of being executed with cyanide gas, or with the poison known as Zyklon B used by the Nazis to murder millions of people in Auschwitz and other extermination camps.
The prisoner now has until 19 May to choose his preferred method of death – after the Supreme Court of Arizona issued an execution warrant for Frank Atwood, which will see him get put to death on June 8. He has the choice of either lethal injection or hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas made notorious by the Nazis as a mass killing technique during the Holocaust.
Atwood’s lawyers are looking to convince the doomed criminal not to opt for cyanide. They point out that the last time Arizona used the gas to kill two prisoners in the 1990s it led to gruesome and prolonged deaths lasting in one case 18 minutes, during which time the prisoner was observed to suffer “agonizing choking and gagging”.
“Cyanide is as bad as everybody thinks it is – there’s a reason the Nazis used it: it’s a horrific way to die,” said Joseph Perkovich of Phillips Black, a member of Atwood’s legal team. “We are now in the position of having to dissuade our client from opting to go into a cyanide gas chamber, and we have 15 days to do it.”
Atwood’s lawyers are concerned by what they consider to be the unacceptable choice between cyanide gas and potentially faulty lethal drugs that they have proposed that the state’s law is amended to allow him to be killed by firing squad. That would have the benefit of being simple and transparent, they say.
Arizona is the only state in the union that has a working gas chamber, though seven states have lethal gas in some form on their execution protocols.
Atwood’s legal team also argue that their client has degeneration of his spine that would cause him excruciating pain were he to be strapped to the gurney during the lethal injection process. “Every second on that table will be agonizing due to the severe spinal stenosis afflicting no less than 16 openings where his nerves exit his spine,” Perkovich said.
The last time that Arizona carried out an execution, in July 2014, it took almost two hours to kill Joseph Wood using a cocktail of lethal drugs. The prisoner was injected 15 times but continued to gasp and gulp a total of 660 times.
Ahtwood has been on death row since 1987 for the 1984 kidnapping and murder of 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, of Tucson. Vicki was kidnapped by Atwood as she rode her bicycle to the mailbox to mail a birthday card to her aunt.
An accident reconstruction showed how Atwood struck Vicki’s bike at a slow speed. It was located just one block from an elementary school.
Atwood was initially charged with only kidnapping, but a few months later, Vicki’s remains were found in the desert outside of Tucson and Atwood was indicted and later convicted of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to death.
The state is set to resume its executions on May 11, starting with Clarence W. Dixon – a multi-felon convict who has been on death row since 2008. Dixon was already serving seven life terms when DNA matched him to the 1978 rape and murder of Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin
Perkovich described the decision bearing down on his client as a Hobson’s choice. The alternative death protocol allowed by Arizona – lethal injection – also holds out the prospect of an agonizing and torturous death.
Confusion reigns over the lethal drugs that the state intends to use in executions. Arizona has acquired batches of the sedative pentobarbital through secretive channels using a compounding pharmacy, and lawyers question whether the drugs are fit for use in an execution.
The last time that Arizona carried out an execution, in July 2014, it took almost two hours to kill Joseph Wood using a cocktail of lethal drugs. The prisoner was injected 15 times but continued to gasp and gulp a total of 660 times.
Atwood, 66, was sentenced to death for killing an eight-year-old girl, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, in 1984. He has consistently claimed that he is innocent of the murder.
Perkovich said the condemned man was resigned to his imminent execution, buoyed up by his strong faith as a devout Greek Orthodox Christian. “He is more prepared to meet his end than anybody I know,” the lawyer said.