Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona

Sign the Petition to Stop the AZ Killing Spree Before it Starts!

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On April 6, 2021, it was reported that State Attorney General Mark Brnovich has asked the Arizona Supreme Court to issue execution warrants for two death-row inmates in what would be the state’s first executions in almost seven years.

Arizona put executions on hold after the 2014 death of Joseph Wood, who was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours. His attorney said the execution was botched. In fact, Arizona has badly botched four executions in as many years.  

To resume executions, while the majority of states have abandoned the death penalty in either law or practice, is in direct opposition to the evolving standards of decency in our country. Also, it turns out the state spent over $1 million to procure drugs for executions, even as so many of its citizens are suffering the economic impacts of the pandemic.

Furthermore, it is important to note that Black people account for just 5.2 percent of the state’s population, but 16 percent of the state’s 116-person death row. Arizona has sentenced nearly a quarter of all Native Americans facing the death penalty in the United States.

Please sign this petition to let officials in Arizona know that resuming executions is the wrong thing to do.

Death Penalty News Feed

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Death Penalty News

ATTORNEY STATEMENT AND CASE BACKGROUND RE: ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKS EXECUTION DATE FOR FRANK ATWOOD DESPITE GRAVE DOUBTS ABOUT HIS CONVICTION

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(April 6, 2021) Today, the Arizona Attorney General took steps to request execution dates from the Arizona Supreme Court, including for Frank Atwood. The State is attempting to begin the execution process for Mr. Atwood, despite open legal issues—including whether he is innocent—that need resolution to ensure any measure of reliability in this conviction and death sentence.

Mr. Atwood was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1984 murder of eight-year- old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the child alive hours after the only time Mr. Atwood could have crossed paths with her. Yet the authorities zeroed in on Mr. Atwood, carrying out an investigation riddled with flaws and lacking in concrete evidence connecting him to the victim’s disappearance, let alone her death.

Below is a statement from Joseph Perkovich, an attorney for Mr. Atwood:

“Frank Atwood’s litigation since early 2020 has been frustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic.


The State is now attempting to sweep aside the most profound issues that can arise in our legal system, including whether the convicted is actually guilty of the crime and whether death is a morally or legally tenable punishment in the individual’s case. Mr. Atwood needs the opportunity to present these issues before the Arizona Supreme Court entertains setting an
execution date.”

  • Joseph Perkovich, Attorney for Frank Atwood
  • April 6, 2021

BACKGROUND ON FRANK ATWOOD’S CASE

In September 1984, Frank Atwood and a fellow-traveler were passing through Tucson when an eight-year-old girl, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, disappeared while riding her bicycle.

Hours later, long after Mr. Atwood supposedly committed this crime, multiple witnesses spotted the girl at the Tucson Mall. But a tip put Mr. Atwood in the same neighborhood that afternoon.


As soon as police learned of his California convictions for child sex-related offenses, they dropped all other investigations, and he was soon arrested. He answered officers’ questions and consented to a search of his car. No evidence of the victim was found.

Seven months later, some of the girl’s bones were found off the side of Ina Road, an arterial avenue. Long after Mr. Atwood’s trial, it emerged that these remains had been buried before they appeared on the desert floor.

The prosecution’s evidence showed there was nowhere near enough time for Mr. Atwood to have abducted, killed, and buried the victim.

Evidence later emerged that the State manufactured its only physical evidence connecting Mr. Atwood to the child – supposed contact between his car and her bicycle — but the courts have yet to get to the truth of that matter. That evidence has never been subjected to modern scientific
testing.

Mr. Atwood, the son of a Holocaust survivor, is now wheelchair-bound and suffering from severe spinal deterioration among other medical problems that would make the process of executing him excruciatingly painful.

For more information, contact Joseph Perkovich, j.perkovich@phillipsblack.org.

10 Things You Can Do For World Against Death Penalty Day – October 10, 2020

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The 18th Annual World Against the Death Penalty Day falls on Saturday, October 10, 2020.

Here are some ideas for organizing (courtesy of World Coalition Against the Death Penalty)

1. Organize a demonstration.
2. Organize a gathering on a videoconference platform. It can take the shape of a webinar, remote workshop, conversation, a public debate or even a virtual film screening to create awareness.
3. Coordinate a letter/email writing campaign.
4. Participate in a TV show or with a community radio station.
5.  Organize an art exhibition (of artwork made by people sentenced to death, of photographs of death row, of drawings or posters) or a [virtual] theatre performance.
6.  Join the events prepared for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide.
7.  Donate to a group working to end the death penalty.
8.  Follow the social media campaign on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter: use #nodeathpenalty or click here to tweet against capital punishment!
9. Mobilize the media to raise awareness on the issue of the death penalty.
10. Participate in “Cities Against the Death Penalty/Cities for Life” on 30 November 2020.

http://www.worldcoalition.org/worldday.html

OP ED The only Native American on federal death row is scheduled for execution. He shouldn’t be.

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By Dan Peitzmeyer and Kevin Heade – Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona

Published August 23, 2020 at AZCentral.Com

Lezmond Mitchell, a member of the Navajo Nation, is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 26 for crimes committed on the Navajo reservation against other tribal members.

President Trump and Attorney General William Barr chose to include Mitchell among the first five federal death row inmates to be executed in 17 years.

Mitchell is the only Native American on federal death row.

Politics put Lezmond Mitchell on death row

He was put there through a politically motivated prosecution. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Paul Charlton, elected not to seek the death penalty. Presumably, this decision was made because the Navajo Nation chose not to opt in to the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA) to allow the death penalty in federal prosecutions of its tribal members under the Major Crimes Act.

However, in 2002, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft overruled Charlton’s decision and insisted that Mitchell be sentenced to death under a loophole to the FDPA’s opt-in requirement by seeking a death sentence for carjacking, a federal crime of national applicability.

President Jonathan Nez of the Navajo Nation has appealed to Trump to respect the culture, tradition, values and sovereignty of the Navajo Nation by commuting Mitchell’s sentence to life in prison. 

Judge Andrew Hurwitz of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (and former vice chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court) has opined that just because the death sentence in Mitchell’s case is legal, it “does not necessarily make it right.” Several members of the victims’ family also oppose putting Mitchell to death. 

Those familiar with Arizona history understand the unique relationship that Native Americans have with the federal government.

Tribal sovereignty and culture should be respected. It is an affront to the Navajo Nation to execute Lezmond Mitchell.

Science, law also support commutation

If President Trump needs more reasons to grant mercy, the advances in law and psychology merit a commutation of Mitchell’s death sentence.

Mitchell was 20 years old in 2001 when he and his accomplice committed their crimes.

The United States Supreme Court has since ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for juveniles and limits life sentences for juveniles to extreme circumstances where the defendant cannot be rehabilitated.

Yet, there is scientific consensus that the legal age of 18 is an arbitrary demarcation between youth and adulthood. Developmental maturity does not occur until the age of 25 or later. 

President Trump should consider this science.

Trump has an opportunity to show that he understands his immense constitutional authority to commute federal death sentences.

2018 Winter Newsletter

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The winter newsletter is now available, featuring:

  • News from around the country about the death penalty;
  • An update on the decline in public support for the death penalty;
  • A reflection by Alan Tavassoli, the president of Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona;
  • And more…

Please click here to see our Winter 2018 newsletter and subscribe by joining our email list.

Vigil & Rally for Exonerees at the Arizona Capital

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Vigil & Rally for Exonerees at the Arizona Capital

Join exonerees from death row at the Arizona Capital for a vigil and rally with guest speaker, Federal Public Defender Capital Habeas Unit, Dale Baich.

The rally is scheduled for May 4th. A screening of The Gathering with guest Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala follows later in the evening at 7:30 PM at 5802 E. Lincoln Dr, Scottsdale, Az.

The event is sponsored by Witness to Innocence. The mission of WTI is to abolish the death penalty by empowering exonerated death row survivors and their loved ones to become effective leaders in the abolition movement.

Please respond to our Vigil and Rally Facebook event to receive updates and reminders about the event. Here is a link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1750315075053995/

Here is a link to our screening event Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/240535156523590/

We look forward to joining you in solidarity for justice. Please send inquiries to info@azdeathpenalty.org.

29 Years for 13 Seconds

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Special performance of “29 Years For 13 Seconds: The Injustices of Justice”, sponsored by Interfaith CommUNITY Spiritual Center and Death Penalty Alternatives of Arizona.

At 16 years old, Vance “Duke” Webster witnessed two friends commit a crime. When refused to “snitch” he was sentenced to life in prison. A one-act play based on a true story, “29 Years For 13 Seconds” is less about Webster’s time in prison and more about how women, religion and social services have created wild waves that he rides without the slightest hint of resentment. Don’t believe it? Come check it out. One night only, 7 p.m., Friday, January 19, 2018, 952 E. Baseline Rd, #102, Mesa, AZ.

NOTE: A suggested love offering of $10 will be collected the night of the show. You may also pre-purchase tickets

Arizona ends automatic solitary confinement of death-row inmates

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From the Death Penalty Information Center:

Several months after Arizona settled a lawsuit over the conditions of confinement on the state’s death row, the state has ended the practice of automatically housing condemned prisoners in solitary confinement, and prisoners and prison officials alike are praising the changes.

Carson McWilliams

Carson McWilliams

Carson McWilliams (pictured right), Division Director for Offender Operations in the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC), told the Arizona Republic that the new incarceration conditions provide an “atmosphere where [prisoners] can socialize,” resulting in “reduce[d] anxiety” that, in turn, “adds to safety control” of the prison. And, prison officials say, it has reduced institutional costs.

Prior to the lawsuit, death row had meant 23-hour-per-day confinement in a concrete cell the size of a parking space, shuttered by a steel door with a perforated slot through which the prisoners would receive their meals, and with a bench bed and a sink attached to an uncovered toilet. Prisoners had no contact visits with families or lawyers, were handcuffed behind the back and subjected to body-cavity searches whenever they left their cells, and were restricted to showering or exercising three times a week. They also were denied prison jobs and educational opportunities. About the solitary conditions, McWilliams remarked, “The more you’re restricted inside a cell, the more likely you are to have depression, to have anxiety, to have other types of mental problems that could lead to some type of problem inside the system, whether its self harm, or suicide, or aggression towards a staff member or towards another inmate.”

One death-row prisoner who was interviewed by the paper said, “It’s hard to explain the deprivation. . . . It weighs on your mind.” McWilliams said it now requires fewer officers to manage death row because officers no longer have to deliver individual meals or individually escort each of the 120 prisoners. Kevin Curran, who has been a prison warden at various facilities run by the ADC, said that he “feels safer among the death-row men than among the career criminals and gangsters in the general population.” Under the new conditions, prisoners are able to socialize with each other in activities such as playing basketball, volleyball, or board games, and can eat meals together. One ADC corrections officer told the Arizona Republic that he was “apprehensive” at first about the changes, but the transition has been “very good” with only a “few minor incidents,” which were “a lot less” than he expected.

(M. Kiefer, Arizona death row comes out of solitary, giving convicts more human contact, socialization, Arizona Republic, Dec. 19, 2017.)