Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who narrowly secured the governor’s mansion in November 2022, halted executions in Arizona shortly after taking office in January 2023. Hobbs, who flipped the governor’s seat to Democrats for the first time since 2009, ordered an independent investigation with the goal of “improving the transparency, accountability, and safety of the execution process.” In an executive order, Hobbs noted that “Arizona has a history of executions that have resulted in serious questions about [the state prison system’s] execution protocols and lack of transparency.”

But in November 2024, three weeks after Donald Trump won the presidential election, Hobbs reversed her position, abruptly pulling the plug on the investigation and announcing that the state would resume executions despite the probe uncovering significant flaws with the way the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) carried out lethal injections. Hobbs instead pointed to an internal ADCRR review that cleared the way for the state to restart executions.

Arizona is now set to execute Aaron Gunches on Wednesday, marking the first execution in the U.S. under a Democratic governor since 2017. (Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe oversaw three executions.)

Hobbs’ decision to restart Arizona’s death penalty, despite lingering questions about how the state executes people, aligns with a larger trend of other active death penalty states, all of them governed by Republicans, trying to hide the process from public view. As journalists and death penalty lawyers questioned whether poor quality lethal injection drugs or unqualified and untrained staff were leading to long, painful executions, more states turned to secrecy: At least 16 death penalty states, including Arizona, have enacted legislation that allows them to hide the identities of executioners and lethal drug suppliers

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250319113702/https://boltsmag.org/secrecy-as-arizona-restarts-executions/