A federal judge has denied an Arizona prisoner's request to delay his execution for the 1984 murder of an 8-year-old girl.
The ruling of Judge Michael Liburdi, known this Sunday, maintains for Wednesday the execution of Frank Atwood, who argued that the death penalty procedures in Arizona violate his constitutional right not to receive cruel or unusual punishment, by subjecting him, according to he stated, to unimaginable pain.
His lawyers have argued that Atwood, who suffers from a degenerative spinal disease that has left him in a wheelchair, would suffer excruciating pain if he were strapped onto a stretcher, lying on his back, to receive the lethal injection.
Frank Atwood was sentenced to death for the murder of 8-year-old Vicki Hoskinson in 1984. Arizona Department of Corrections.
The judge, however, rejected that argument, stating that the prisoner will be provided with a pillow to relieve pressure on his spine and the table where he will lie can also be tilted.
He said those accommodations "will minimize the pain plaintiff experiences when he lies on his back."
The judge wrote that the Constitution "does not require a painless execution," and that Atwood's position will be similar to the one he usually takes in his cell to limit pain.
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Liburdi also rejected challenges about the drug that state authorities plan to use and dismissed Atwood's claim about Arizona's use of the gas chamber, which he sees as irrelevant because he will be the inmate executed by lethal injection.
Atwood asked the Arizona Supreme Court to delay his execution while his lawyers made new arguments about his claimed innocence;
his motion was denied last week, but he is now coming up for consideration again.
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In addition, his defense continues to argue with state authorities about religious issues before and during his execution.
The prisoner has been a practitioner of the Greek Orthodox faith for more than two decades and wants the state to allow him to undergo a religious initiation ceremony before execution and receive last rites while he is in the execution chamber.
Arizona has largely agreed to his petition, but the two sides disagree on details and a judge is settling the matter.
Atwood was convicted of the murder of Vicki Hoskinson in 1984.
The man kidnapped the girl, whose remains were discovered in the desert northwest of Tucson nearly seven months after she went missing.
Experts were unable to determine a cause of death from her remains, according to court records.
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Atwood maintained that he is innocent of the crimes.
As of last month, Arizona went nearly eight years without carrying out an execution.
The hiatus has been attributed to the difficulty in obtaining lethal injection drugs, as manufacturers refuse to supply them, and to problems during the July 2014 execution of Joseph Wood, who was given 15 doses of a combination of two drugs for almost two hours.
Wood repeatedly snorted and gasped before dying.
His lawyer said the execution had been bungled.
The hiatus ended on May 11, when the state executed Clarence Dixon for the 1978 murder of Deana Bowdoin, a 21-year-old Arizona State University student.
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As part of Atwood's argument to have his execution delayed, his attorneys questioned whether the compound pentobarbital to be used in the execution meets pharmaceutical standards and whether the state has complied with the requirement that the drug's expiration date be after the execution date.
Prosecutors say Atwood was trying to postpone his execution indefinitely through legal maneuvering.
Two weeks ago, the defendant refused to choose between lethal injection or the gas chamber, leaving himself to lethal injection, the state's default method of execution.
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Arizona, California, Missouri and Wyoming are the only states with lethal gas enforcement laws that have been in place for decades.
Arizona, which carried out the last gas chamber execution in the United States more than two decades ago, is the only state that still has a working gas chamber.
In recent years, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama have passed laws allowing nitrogen gas executions, at least in some circumstances, though experts say this has never been done and no state has established a protocol allowing it.
Atwood's lawyers also said Arizona could resume executions by firing squad, a method of execution not used in the state.