An Arizona death row inmate's bid to delay his execution was denied by a federal judge, revealed the ruling that was posted Sunday.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi keeps on track Wednesday’s scheduled execution of Frank Atwood, whose execution is in connection with the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old girl, reported Fox 10 Phoenix.
He argued that the state’s death penalty procedures would violate his constitutional right against unusual and cruel punishment by subjecting him to pain that's unimaginable. Atwood, who has a degenerative spinal condition that has left him in a wheelchair, would undergo excruciating suffering, said his lawyers. He would suffer a lot if he were strapped to a gurney while lying on his back during his lethal injection execution, shared the lawyers.
In the ruling made Saturday, Liburdi said that he would not block the execution based on Atwood’s claim. The judge noted that the state will provide the inmate with a medical wedge. It will relieve pressure on his spine and can also tilt the execution table. The judge said that those accommodations "will minimize the pain Plaintiff experiences when he lies on his back." Liburdi wrote that the constitution "does not require a pain-free execution." He added that the inmate's position will be similar to what he typically assumes in his cell to limit pain.
The judge also rejected challenges to the drug that the state plans to use. He dismissed Atwood’s claim over the Arizona’s death row inmate's use of the gas chamber. He said that it was irrelevant because he will be executed using lethal injection.
The inmate's lawyer filed an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and asked for his execution to be delayed. The legal team argued that while he has the ability to choose between lethal injection and lethal gas, that choice is really no choice. It's no choice because the state’s use of cyanide gas would also cause excruciating pain. It would leave him to choose between two "torturous" executions methods.
According to AZ Central, prosecutors said that Atwood is trying to indefinitely postpone his execution through legal methods.
He was convicted of murder in the case of Vicki Hoskinson, who was killed in 1984. Atwood kidnapped the girl, whose remains were found in the desert northwest of Tucson nearly seven months after she went missing, said authorities. According to court records, experts could not determine the cause of death from the remains that were discovered. 12 News reported that Atwood maintains that he is innocent.
