Arizona’s execution pitted experts against politicians. Experts lost

‘It is not surprising that the attack on knowledge would infect decisions about how to end the lives of people condemned to death.’ Photograph: Darryl Webb/AP

Arizona executed Aaron Gunches by lethal injection on Wednesday, 19 March. As ABC News reports, he was put to death for “kidnapping and killing 40-year-old Ted Price by shooting him four times in the Arizona desert”.

Gunches’s case was unusual in many ways, not least that he stopped his legal appeals and volunteered to be executed, then changed his mind before changing it again. His execution was scheduled to be carried out almost two years ago. It was put on hold when the Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, commissioned an independent review of the state’s death penalty procedures after a series of botched executions.