Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – A 53-year-old man convicted of murder was put to death by lethal injection in Arizona on Wednesday in the first execution in the southwestern US state in more than two years. Aaron Gunches, who had dropped legal efforts to halt his execution, was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband.
“Justice for Ted Price and his family was finally served,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters following the execution at a state prison in Florence, Arizona. Media witnesses said Gunches was placed on a gurney in the death chamber and restraints were put on his arms and legs. Asked if he had any last words, Gunches shook his head to say no. Intravenous lines were then inserted into his arms and Gunches breathed heavily several times after the drugs began to flow, the witnesses said. He lost consciousness and his chest stopped moving several minutes later.
Gunches was the first prisoner put to death in Arizona since November 2022. Problems with administering lethal injections in previous executions led to a suspension of capital punishments while a review was conducted. John Barcello, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, said Gunches’s execution went as planned. “By all accounts, the process went according to plan without any incident at all,” Barcello told reporters.
Gunches was executed one day after a 46-year-old man convicted of rape and murder was put to death by nitrogen gas in the southern state of Louisiana. Jessie Hoffman, who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Molly Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive, was the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years. Only one other US state, Alabama, has carried out executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate. The method has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.
The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection, although South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on March 7. Two other executions are scheduled in the United States this week — in Florida and Oklahoma. Wendell Grissom, 56, is to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday for shooting and killing Amber Matthews, 23, during a 2005 home robbery. Edward James, 63, is to be executed by lethal injection in Florida on Thursday. James was sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, Toni Neuner, and the murder of Betty Dick, her 58-year-old grandmother.
There have been eight executions in the United States this year, following 25 last year. The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place. President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
© 2024 AFP
