Arizona completes execution for murder committed 44 years ago

As reported in this local article, "Arizona executed Clarence Dixon at the state prison in Florence on Wednesday for the 1978 murder of 21-year-old ASU student Deana Bowdoin."  Here is more:

Dixon was executed at 10:30 a.m., according to Deputy Corrections Director Frank Strada. "I do and always will proclaim my innocence — now let's do this shit," Dixon said in his last statement, according to Strada.

Troy Hayden, a media witness from Fox News, said the execution team had trouble getting IVs into Dixon, who grimaced and appeared to be in pain while this was happening. Dixon seemed defiant and proclaimed his innocence in a calm voice.

Dixon made several comments to the medical team, insulted them, told them "they worshipped death," mocked their Hippocratic oath, and addressed the woman he was convicted of killing, Deana Bowdoin, according to Hayden. Hayden said Dixon referenced Bowdoin several times directly, and said she knew he didn't kill her.

Hayden said execution team members took 25 minutes to insert IVs into Dixon's body, eventually resorting to making an incision and inserting an IV into Dixon's groin. Dixon was grimacing and appeared to be in pain while the execution team attempted to insert the IVs, Hayden said, but he appeared to lose consciousness a few minutes after the drugs were administered. "They did have to wipe up a fair amount of blood," said Paul Davenport, a media witness from The Associated Press, who saw the incision taking place....

"Today the process has been finalized," said Leslie Bowdoin James, the sister of Deana Bowdoin, adding that her husband just died 12 days ago. Addressing the media, Bowdoin read a list of numbers that she said were important to her. "Forty-three and 20: the number of hearings and the number of years I have attended since the indictment," she said. "Thirteen: The number of women that this inmate victimized. One and zero: The number of sisters I had up until, and after, January 7, 1978."...

Gov. Doug Ducey issued a statement after Dixon’s execution, calling it justice served. “Today the family of Deana Bowdoin was provided the justice they've long been waiting for,” the governor’s statement stated. “The void left by Deana's murder 44 years ago will never be filled, but the sentence carried out this morning is a solemn reminder that we are a nation of laws and it is the responsibility of the state to enforce them.”

Dixon's attorneys made several attempts to stop or postpone the execution, maintaining he was mentally incompetent to understand why he was being executed. But multiple courts found that while Dixon may have harbored delusions about a judicial conspiracy to kill him, he was aware of his circumstances and constitutionally eligible to be put to death....

The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency denied requests from Dixon's attorneys for a commutation or reprieve.  His attorneys asked for mercy, saying Dixon was blind, frail and in poor health and didn't represent a danger to society or anyone in the prison system.  But the board denied the requests, saying Dixon had failed to show any remorse for his crimes....

Arizona has not carried out an execution since the botched execution of [Joseph] Wood, which took nearly two hours to complete.  The state claims it has refined its execution protocols and is planning to use a single drug, pentobarbital, for executions, instead of the combination of drugs that were used on Wood.  Pentobarbital was used successfully by the federal government in a series of executions conducted in 2020.

Dixon’s execution marks a return to the death penalty for Arizona after a troubled history that includes the state attempting to acquire execution drugs illegally in 2015 and more recently failing to accurately determine the shelf life of the pentobarbital the state plans to use moving forward....

According to the Arizona Attorney General's Office, there are more than 20 people on death row who have exhausted their appeals. Frank Atwood, sentenced in Pima County in 1987 for the murder of an 8-year-old girl, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, is scheduled to be executed June 8.