A convicted child killer in Arizona has had his execution date scheduled after a judicial board denied him clemency.
Frank Atwood, 66, has been on death row in the state since 1984 after he was found guilty of the rape and murder of eight-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson.
Atwood, who denies the crime, will be executed on June 8, 2022. The judicial board said it’s ‘high time he accepts responsibility for his heinous crimes'.
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According to the Daily Star, Attorney General Mark Brnovich said at a hearing on May 24: “Arizona confirmed its resolute message to a child rapist and killer today. It’s high time to accept responsibility for your heinous crimes.”
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AZ Central notes that Board Chair Mina Mendez added: “Based on my review of the entirety of the record, I found that the evidence considered by the jury to be overwhelming evidence of Mr. Atwood’s guilt.
“Mr. Atwood is not innocent – not by any stretch of the imagination.”
Earlier this month, Atwood was given two weeks to decide whether he’d rather be executed by lethal injection or cyanide gas.
Cyanide gas is a poison known as Zyklon B and was used by the Nazis to murder millions of concentration camp prisoners.
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On Tuesday, 3 May, the supreme court of Arizona told Atwood that he had until 19 May to decide how he wants to die, The Guardian reported at the time.
The convicted criminal’s lawyers urged Atwood to opt for lethal injection, pointing out that the last time Arizona executed two prisoners with gas – back in the 1990s – they were subjected to ‘gruesome and prolonged deaths’.
It took one man 18 minutes to die, and he suffered ‘agonising choking and gagging’.
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Joseph Perkovich, a member of Atwood’s legal team, said: “Cyanide is as bad as everybody thinks it is – there’s a reason the Nazis used it: it’s a horrific way to die.”
He added: “We are now in the position of having to dissuade our client from opting to go into a cyanide gas chamber, and we have 15 days to do it.”
Perkovich also noted that the lethal injection will still mean Atwood is subjected to ‘agonising’ pain because he has degeneration of the spine.
Perkovich said: “Every second on that table will be agonising due to the severe spinal stenosis afflicting no less than 16 openings where his nerves exit his spine.”
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