Aaron Brian Gunches asks Arizona Supreme Court to be executed sooner than state wants

PHOENIX — An Arizona death row inmate has asked the state’s highest court to avoid legal red tape and schedule his execution sooner than authorities wanted, lobbying as he did in the past, so that his death sentence can be carried out.

The execution of Aaron Brian Gunches would mark a resumption of the use of the death penalty in Arizona after a two-year pause while it reviewed its procedures.

In a handwritten brief filed this week, Gunches asked the state Supreme Court to set his execution for mid-February for his murder conviction in the 2002 killing of Ted Price.

Gunches, who is not a lawyer but represents himself, said his death sentence was “long overdue” and that the state was dragging its feet in asking the court for a timetable for legal briefings before the execution .

The office of Attorney General Kris Mayes, who is seeking Gunches’ execution, said a briefing schedule was needed to ensure corrections officers could meet execution requirements, such as the pentobarbital test that will be used to his lethal injection.

Two years ago, Gunches asked the Arizona Supreme Court to issue his execution warrant, saying justice could be served and the victims’ families could gain closure.

Gunches was scheduled to be executed in April 2023. But Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office said the state was not ready to carry out the death penalty because it lacked competent personnel to carry out executions.

Hobbs, a Democrat, had promised not to carry out any executions until it was certain the state could do so without violating any laws. The review Hobbs had ordered effectively ended in November when she fired the retired federal judge she had appointed to lead the review.

Gunches pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the shooting death of Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near Mesa, a Phoenix suburb.

Arizona, which has 111 prisoners on death row, carried out three executions for the last time in 2022, after a nearly eight-year hiatus sparked by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and in due to difficulties in obtaining drugs for execution.

Since then, the state has been criticized for taking too long to insert an IV for a lethal injection into a convict.