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#Post#: 502--------------------------------------------------
~ Clarence Dixon, 11May22, (AZ) ~
By: BuzzC Date: April 26, 2022, 1:18 pm
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Arizona to Execute First Death Row Inmate in 8 Years--
April 6, 2022
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The Arizona Supreme Court has issued an execution warrant for
death row inmate Clarence Dixon.
The court on Tuesday set a May 11 execution date for 65-year-old
Dixon, who was sentenced to death for the killing of 21-year-old
Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin.
Bowdoin had been raped, strangled and stabbed to death in her
Tempe apartment in January 1978, prosecutors said.
But it wasn't until 2001 that a police detective tested DNA
against a national database and found it matched Dixon's
profile. Dixon was then serving a life sentence for a sexual
assault conviction, but had lived across the street from Bowdoin
at the time of her killing. He was indicted for Bowdoin's murder
in 2002.
If it goes ahead, Dixon's execution would be Arizona's first use
of the death penalty in almost eight years.
8)
#Post#: 507--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Clarence Dixon, 11May22, (AZ) ~
By: BuzzC Date: May 10, 2022, 6:57 pm
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Arizona inmate loses bid to avoid execution on Wednesday--
Tuesday, May 10th, 2022
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PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a request to
postpone the planned execution of an Arizona prisoner in what
would be the state’s first use of the death penalty in nearly
eight years.
The judge’s decision keeps on track plans to execute 66-year-old
Clarence Dixon on Wednesday morning at the state prison in
Florence for his murder conviction in the 1978 killing of
21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin.
Dixon appealed the judge’s ruling at the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals, where three judges heard arguments on Tuesday afternoon
but didn’t say when they planned to issue their decision.
Dixon’s remaining legal efforts center on his claim that he is
mentally unfit to be executed and that his psychological
problems prevent him from rationally understanding why the state
wants to end his life.
The Arizona Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a state
judge’s decision that rejected Dixon’s arguments, leading his
attorneys to introduce similar claims in federal court.
In rejecting Dixon’s arguments, U.S. District Judge Diane
Humetewa concluded the state judge had applied the correct legal
standards in assessing Dixon’s mental fitness.
Even though Dixon has been diagnosed with schizophrenia,
Humetewa wrote that the state judge had reasonably determined
that Dixon did not lack a rational understanding of the reasons
for putting him to death.
Dixon’s lawyers have said their client erroneously believes he
will be executed because police at Northern Arizona University
wrongfully arrested him in a previous case — a 1985 attack on a
21-year-old student. His attorneys concede he was in fact
lawfully arrested then by Flagstaff police.
Dixon was sentenced to life sentences in that case for sexual
assault and other convictions. DNA samples taken while he was in
prison later linked him to Bowdoin’s killing, which at that
point had been unsolved.
Prosecutors said there was nothing about Dixon’s beliefs that
prevent him from understanding the reason for the execution and
pointed to court filings that Dixon himself made over the years.
In asking the federal appeals court for a stay of execution,
Dixon’s lawyers argued the state court judge who considered
their client’s mental fitness ignored evidence showing that
Dixon experiences delusions from his schizophrenia, preventing
him from understanding why he is being executed.
Prosecutors argued Dixon’s claim lacked merit. “The state court
decision was reasonable based on the facts before it,” Jeffrey
Sparks, a top attorney for the Arizona Attorney General’s
Office, told the appeals court.
Defense lawyers have said Dixon has been diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia on multiple occasions, has regularly experienced
hallucinations over the past 30 years and was found “not guilty
by reason of insanity” in a 1977 assault case in which the
verdict was delivered by then-Maricopa County Superior Court
Judge Sandra Day O’Connor, nearly four years before her
appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bowdoin was killed two
days after the verdict, according to court records.
Authorities have said Bowdoin, who was found dead in her
apartment, had been raped, stabbed and strangled. Dixon had been
charged with raping Bowdoin, but the charge was later dropped on
statute-of-limitation grounds. He was convicted, though, in her
death.
Dixon, who is blind and in declining health, is set to be the
first person put to death in Arizona in nearly eight years,
mainly because of problems with the state’s most recent
execution nearly eight years ago.
The state had to give Joseph Wood 15 doses of a two-drug
combination over two hours before he died in July 2014 in an
execution that his lawyers said was botched. The state now is
using just one drug.
8)
#Post#: 508--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Clarence Dixon, 11May22, (AZ) ~
By: BuzzC Date: May 12, 2022, 2:51 am
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Arizona executes convicted killer Clarence Dixon by lethal
injection--
Wednesday, May 11th, 2022
FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) — An Arizona man convicted of killing a
college student in 1978 was put to death Wednesday after a
nearly eight-year hiatus in the state’s use of the death penalty
brought on by a nearly two-hour execution that critics say was
botched.
Clarence Dixon, 66, died by lethal injection at the state prison
in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of
21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin,
making him the sixth person to be executed in the U.S. in 2022.
Dixon’s death was announced late Wednesday morning by Frank
Strada, a deputy director with Arizona Department of
Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.
The execution appeared to track the state’s protocol, though the
medical team had some difficulty finding a vein to administer
the lethal drugs. They first tried Dixon’s arms and then made an
incision in his groin area. That process took about 25 minutes.
After the drugs were injected, Dixon’s mouth stayed open and his
body did not move. The execution was declared completed about 10
minutes after he was injected.
In the final weeks of Dixon’s life, his lawyers tried to
postpone the execution, but judges rejected the argument that he
was not mentally fit to be executed and did not have a rational
understanding of why the state wanted to execute him. The U.S.
Supreme Court rejected a last-minute delay of Dixon’s execution
less than an hour before the execution began.
Dixon earlier declined the option of being killed in Arizona’s
gas chamber that was refurbished in 2020 — a method that hasn’t
been used in the U.S. in more than two decades.
Shortly before he was executed with pentobarbital, Strada said
Dixon declared: “The Arizona Supreme Court should follow the
laws. They denied my appeals and petitions to change the outcome
of this trial. I do and will always proclaim innocence. Now,
let’s do this (expletive).”
And as prison medical staff put an IV line in Dixon’s thigh in
preparation for the injection, he chided them, saying: “This is
really funny — trying to be as thorough as possible while you
are trying to kill me.”
Leslie James, Bowdoin’s older sister and a witness to the
execution, told reporters after it was conducted that Deana
Bowdoin had been poised to graduate from ASU and was planning a
career in international marketing. James described her sister as
a hard worker who loved to travel, spoke multiple languages and
wrote poetry.
She characterized the execution as a relief but criticized how
long it took to happen: “This process was way, way, way too
long,” James said. He had been on death row since his 2008
conviction.
The last time Arizona executed a prisoner was in July 2014, when
Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over
two hours in an execution that his lawyers said was botched.
Wood snorted repeatedly and gasped more than 600 times before he
died, and an execution that normally would take 10 minutes to
complete lasted nearly two hours. 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.
States including Arizona have struggled to buy execution drugs
in recent years after U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies
began blocking the use of their products in lethal injections.
Authorities have said Bowdoin, who was found dead in her
apartment in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, had been raped,
stabbed and strangled with a belt.
Dixon, who lived across the street from Bowdoin, had been
charged with raping Bowdoin, but the rape charge was later
dropped on statute-of-limitation grounds. He was convicted of
murder in her killing.
In arguing that Dixon was mentally unfit, his lawyers said he
erroneously believed he would be executed because police at
Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff wrongfully arrested him
in another case — a 1985 attack on a 21-year-old student. His
attorneys conceded he was lawfully arrested by Flagstaff police.
Dixon was sentenced to life in prison in that case for sexual
assault and other convictions. DNA samples taken while he was in
prison later linked him to Bowdoin’s killing, which had been
unsolved.
Prosecutors said there was nothing about Dixon’s beliefs that
prevented him from understanding the reason for the execution
and pointed to court filings that Dixon himself made over the
years.
Defense lawyers said Dixon was repeatedly diagnosed with
paranoid schizophrenia, regularly experienced hallucinations
over the past 30 years and was found “not guilty by reason of
insanity” in a 1977 assault case in which the verdict was
delivered by then-Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sandra
Day O’Connor, nearly four years before her appointment to the
U.S. Supreme Court. Bowdoin was killed two days after that
verdict, according to court records.
Another Arizona death-row prisoner, Frank Atwood, is scheduled
to be executed on June 8 in the killing of 8-year-old Vicki
Lynne Hoskinson in 1984. Authorities have said Atwood kidnapped
the girl.
The child’s remains was discovered in the desert northwest of
Tucson nearly seven months after her disappearance. Experts
could not determine the cause of death from the bones that were
found, according to court records.
Arizona now has 112 prisoners left on the state’s death row.
8)
#Post#: 509--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Clarence Dixon, 11May22, (AZ) ~
By: BuzzC Date: May 12, 2022, 3:12 am
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Who was Deana Bowdoin, the victim of Arizona death row killer
Clarence Dixon?--
Wednesday, May 11th, 2022
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Deana Lynne Bowdoin, 21, was a senior at Arizona State
University when she was killed in her apartment in the early
morning hours of Jan. 7, 1978.
Her murderer was unknown for years until DNA evidence linked
Clarence Wayne Dixon to the crime.
Dixon was convicted three decades after her death. On May 11,
2022, he became the first man put to death by Arizona since the
botched execution of Joseph Wood in 2014.
Who was Deana Bowdoin?
Bowdoin was a few months shy of graduating with a degree in
marketing management from the Tempe university.
She was an honor student and member of the international
business honor society Beta Gamma Sigma. She was considering a
career in law, international marketing or diplomacy after taking
the LSAT and the Foreign Service Officers tests.
She exuded kindness, her sister Leslie Bowdoin James said.
"Whether the person was elderly or whether they were little
kids, she just seemed to be able to talk and relate to them,"
James said.
Growing up in Phoenix, Bowdoin went to Squaw Peak Elementary and
graduated with honors from Camelback High School. She was a
debutante for the Phoenix Honors Cotillion in 1974 and was first
runner-up for the organization’s Debutante of the Year academic
award.
Bowdoin's sister told the board Dixon had made the choice to
"punch, rape, stab and strangle to death my only sister."
"For me and my parents and for all the women brutalized by this
inmate — for society — and most of all for my sister Deana —
there is not one legal, social or moral imperative for
recommending reprieve of commutation," James said.
In their last denial of clemency to Dixon, board members said he
had failed to show remorse for his crimes and did not deserve
mercy.
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