Clarence Dixon is set to be executed by the Arizona Department of Corrections next month. If it goes forward, it will be the first time the state has put someone to death since the botched execution of Joseph Wood in 2014. That execution took more than two hours and involved 15 doses of lethal drugs.

The state Supreme Court had previously vacated an attempt to execute Dixon as well as another inmate because state officials didn’t have lethal drugs that weren’t expired.

Now, Dixon declined to choose a method of death, so the default will be a one-dose lethal injection. The state Department of Corrections said in March of last year it had obtained the drug pentobarbital and could resume executions. But as KJZZ reported at the time, the Department of Corrections would not disclose the source of the pentobarbital or any compounding pharmacy that may have produced it.

Deborah Denno is the founding director of the Neuroscience and Law Center at Fordham University’s school of law and an expert on the death penalty. 

The Show spoke with her for more insight on the case.

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