The new governor of the US state of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, has announced the suspension of all executions and the opening of a review process of the protocols for applying the death penalty.
This review follows an order from Hobbs, who on Friday signed an executive order creating an independent commissioner who will work to «oversee and provide transparency to the death penalty process in Arizona». Hobbs was sworn in on Jan. 2 and is Arizona’s first Democratic governor since 2009.
«It is time to face the fact that this system needs better oversight on numerous fronts, always with the cooperation of the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Recovery that I now lead,» Hobbs explained.
«Arizona has a history of poorly executed executions that have resulted in a questioning of the Department’s execution protocols and a lack of transparency,» he added.
State Attorney General Kris Mayes, recently elected by the Democratic Party, has explained that the moratorium also affects a convicted murderer who asked to be executed but later withdrew the request.
There are currently 110 inmates on death row. Three executions were carried out last year. The first was in May and became the first since July 2014. The inmate breathed in with great difficulty more than 600 times before he died. Executions by lethal injection have also generated problems due to lack of supply.
The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nongovernmental agency, reported that 35 percent of last year’s execution attempts were «visibly problematic.»
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
