Arizona executes second death row inmate in less than a month

FLORENCE, Ariz. — Arizona has executed its second death row inmate in less than a month on Wednesday.

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The Associated Press said Frank Atwood, 66, died by lethal injection Wednesday morning at the Florence Prison in Arizona. Atwood and his lawyers made a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution but the Supreme Court struck down the appeal about 30 minutes before his scheduled execution.

Atwood was convicted for the murder of Vicki Hoskinson in 1984. Her body, according to the AP, was found in the desert months after she went missing while she went outside to drop a birthday card off in the mail by her Tucson home.

Executions in Arizona restarted in May after the state stopped them for about eight years. Last month, Arizona executed Clarence Dixon, who was convicted of killing a student at Arizona State University in 1978 by lethal injection.

Atwood had a choice between dying in a gas chamber or lethal injection. He chose lethal injection, according to the AP. His lawyers said hydrogen cyanide used in the gas chamber was “unconstitutional and would produce agonizing levels of pain in executions.” It has been used in the U.S. for executions before and it was used in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Atwood’s lawyers argued that the gas should be switched from hydrogen cyanide or nitrogen gas, according to the AP. Arizona is the only state in the U.S. with a working gas chamber and the last gas chamber execution was done over 20 years ago. Arizona, California, Missouri and Wyoming are the only states that have lethal-gas execution laws in place.

No other executions are scheduled in Arizona, according to the AP. There are about 111 prisoners on death row in the state.

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