Experts: Arizona executioners took too long to insert IV

PHOENIX (AP) — The first execution in Arizona in nearly eight years was carried out more smoothly than the state’s last use of the death penalty, when a condemned prisoner who was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination gasped for air hundreds of times over nearly two hours.

The lethal-injection death of Clarence Dixon on Wednesday at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the 1978 killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin appeared to follow the state’s execution protocol: After the drug was injected, Dixon’s mouth stayed open and his body did not move. He was declared dead about 10 minutes later.

But death penalty experts Thursday that said the estimated 25 minutes it took medical staff to insert an IV into Dixon’s body was too long. The workers first tried and failed to insert an IV into his left arm before they were able to connect it in his right arm. They then opted to make an incision, known as a “cutdown,” in his groin area for another IV line.

Deborah Denno, a Fordham Law School professor who has studied executions for more 25 years, said executions should take seven to 10 minutes from the beginning of the IV insertion process until the moment the prisoner is declared dead.

“It’s a sign of desperation (on the part of the execution team), and it’s a sign of an unqualified executioner,” Denno said.

Before Dixon was put to death, the last execution in Arizona took place in July 2014, when Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over nearly two hours. Wood snorted repeatedly and gasped before he died. The process dragged on for so long that the Arizona Supreme Court convened an emergency hearing during the execution to decide whether to halt the procedure.

Since then, Arizona changed its execution...