Arizona puts convicted murderer Clarence Dixon to death after Supreme Court denies stay

It was the state’s first execution since 2014 killing of Joseph Wood

Arizona has put convicted murderer Clarence Dixon to death after the US Supreme Court denied an eleventh hour request by his lawyers for a stay of execution.

Dixon, 66, became the first inmate executed by the state for eight years when he died by lethal injection on Wednesday, despite claims by his defence team that he had schizophrenia and should not be put to death.

He was convicted of the murder and sexual assault of Arizona State University student Deana Dowdoin in 1978.

Dixon’s execution took place at the state prison in Florence, Arizona, and he became the sixth person to be put to death in the United States in 2022.

Dixon’s death appeared to go without hitches, said witness Troy Hayden, an anchor for the Fox10 TV.

“Once the drugs started flowing, he went to sleep almost immediately,” Mr Hayden told the Associated Press.

The last execution in Arizona came in July 2014, when Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over a two-hour period in what his lawyers branded a botched killing.

Frank Strada, a deputy director with Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, told reporters that Dixon’s last words were: “The Arizona Supreme Court should follow the laws. They denied my appeals and petitions to change the outcome of this trial. I do and will always proclaim innocence. Now, let’s do this (expletive).”

Lawyers for Mr Dixon had unsuccesfully claimed that he was not mentally fit to be executed and did not have a rational understanding of why the state wanted to execute him.

The US Supreme Court’s rejection of a further delay in the sentence came just an hour before the execution took place.

Arizona now has 112 prisoners on death row. Frank Atwood, is set to be executed on 8 June for the killing of eight-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson in 1984.

The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report