Arizona has scheduled an execution date for a condemned inmate whose death sentence the state originally planned to carry out in early 2023. This would mark Arizona’s first execution since then, if is carried out as intended.
Aaron Brian Gunches was convicted in 2007 of fatally shooting his girlfriend’s ex-husband, Ted Price, five years earlier in a Phoenix suburb. He also shot a trooper twice when the Arizona Department of Public Safety pulled him over near the California border in 2003, according to authorities. Casings taken from the trooper’s bullet proof vest, which saved him, matched casings found at the scene of Price’s killing.
Gunches, now 53, was put on death row after pleading guilty to Price’s murder. The inmate recently said his death sentence was “long overdue,” the Associated Press reported.
In a statement, Price’s sister, Karen Price, described her brother as a kind and loving person who enjoyed watching the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks and riding his motorcycle.
Price expressed relief now that the execution warrant has been issued. Her brother’s two children, teenagers at the time of his death, were forever changed, she said.
“It’s impossible to describe how Ted’s murder has devastated our family,” Price said.
/ AP
Arizona paused executions in 2022 to review and improve death penalty procedures, officials said at the time. As Gunches’ original execution date approached the following year, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs delayed it and said Arizona was unprepared to enforce the death penalty, due to a shortage of corrections staff with expertise to carry out executions and the state’s lack of a pharmacy contract needed for lethal injection drugs. The state’s attorney general, also a Democrat, agreed not to pursue executions while the state’s death penalty protocol was under review.
No executions were carried out in Arizona between 2014 and 2022 after the state faced severe public scrutiny in the wake of a notoriously prolonged lethal injection that lawyers said was botched. After briefly resuming executions in 2022, Arizona again saw criticism for taking too long to insert an IV for lethal injection into a condemned prisoner.
Arizona’s death penalty review ended in November when Hobbs dismissed the retired federal magistrate judge she had appointed to examine execution procedures.
A spokesperson said then that the review resulted in critical improvements to meet legal and constitutional standards, and that the governor “remains committed to upholding the law while ensuring justice is carried out in a way that’s transparent and humane.”
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement to CBS News at the time that she intended to seek a death warrant for Gunches.
“I am confident that executions can now proceed in compliance with state and federal law,” Mayes said in the statement.
Gunches, who isn’t a lawyer but is representing himself, had asked the court in late December to skip legal formalities and schedule his lethal injection earlier than authorities had planned, saying his death sentence was “long overdue.” The state Supreme Court rejected his request.
There was no immediate response to phone and email messages seeking comment from Emily Skinner, an attorney who serves as Gunches’ advisory counsel.
