Arizona seeks to resume executions after 7-year hiatus

PHOENIX (AP) — Prosecutors have asked the Arizona Supreme Court to issue an execution warrant for a convicted killer that if carried out would be the state’s first use of the death penalty in seven years. Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office on Thursday filed the request for a warrant of execution against Clarence Dixon, who was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1977 killing of a college student. The last time Arizona used the death penalty was in 2014, when Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours in an execution that his lawyers said had been botched.