Arizona’s nearly eight-year hiatus in using the death penalty ended with the execution of Clarence Davis for killing a college student 44 years ago, making him the sixth person to be put to death in the U.S. so far this year.
Dixon's death Wednesday for the 1978 killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin broke the lull in Arizona’s use of capital punishment caused by a 2014 execution that critics say was botched and the difficulty that state officials faced in sourcing lethal injection drugs.
