On April 7th, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a motion for warrant of execution of Frank Atwood.  If granted, Frank will be executed in early June of 2022.  Previously when AG Brnovich tried to have him executed, he was denied because the pentobarbital to be used in the execution has an expiration date of 45 days after being compounded, according to the pharmacist who provided the drug and according to scientific literature.  Since it takes longer than 45 days, once the drug is compounded, to complete the necessary proceedings in order to have Frank executed, this means he will be killed with an expired drug.

In order to get around this, recently Brnovich provided “test results” that showed his drugs have an expiration date of at least 90 days, something he never backed up with a quantitative analysis and something not supported by known science.  It is required by law that a quantitative analysis be provided for any compounded or non-compounded drug which is to be used in an execution.  

Furthermore, the AZ Courts were going to allow a certain Dr. Palenik (forensic expert) to do additional testing on the bumper of the vehicle Frank was driving at the time of his arrest, in order to determine the origin of the paint which was found on it that matched the color of the paint on the victim’s bicycle.  After Dr. Palenik began his testing, the Courts afterwards dismissed the possibility of allowing any uncovered testing results to be presented in court!

To make matters worse, less than 2 months ago, Frank’s lead attorney was tragically killed in a skiing accident (may his memory be eternal!), and Frank has yet to be appointed a new lead attorney to defend him against these breaches of the justice system.

Brnovich recently commented in regards to the death penalty that "This is something society does, not because we want to, or because there’s some sort of bloodlust.  We do this because justice requires it.”

Yet doesn’t our justice system require that the constitutional rights of prisoners be upheld?  Should our justice system be allowed to turn a blind eye to the facts surrounding Frank's innocence and allow him to be murdered barbarically with expired drugs as a scapegoat?

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