Author
Poorly executed: The politics behind executions
Aaron Gunches killed a man on the Beeline Highway in 2002. His girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend came to visit and overstayed his welcome. The two exes quarreled, it turned physical, and the woman hit her ex-boyfriend in the face with a phone, not knocking him completely out, but making him groggy. Gunches decided to put him on […]
Poorly executed: ‘The experiment failed,’ halting executions in Arizona
Executions are absurd but solemn rituals. In Arizona, they are carried out at what is left of the old central unit in Florence, in a small building called Housing Unit 9 inside the prison walls. And, by law, they are attended by witnesses to make sure that justice is served. Who are the witnesses? The condemned […]
Poorly executed: IVs and ironies
People have asked me many times if I was scared when I interviewed convicted murderers. My answer is that the scariest thing about most murderers is that they aren’t scary. They committed horrible acts, but they don’t usually look like crazed killers in movies. They look and talk like anyone else, which makes you realize […]
Poorly executed: The ‘Golden Age of executions’ comes to an end
In Spring 2010, attorney Dale Baich attended a court hearing for a client on Ohio’s death row who had a scheduled execution date. The Ohio attorney general remarked that the state was having difficulty obtaining one of the drugs they needed to carry out the execution, sodium thiopental. Dale was then the head of the […]
Poorly executed: How Arizona has failed at carrying out the death penalty
It could have been a reception after a funeral: cold cuts, breads and salads set out for the guests. But it was a somber gathering in a conference room at the Central Prison Unit in Florence after the execution of Robert Comer in May 2007, and the buffet was set by the Arizona Department of […]