Arizona plans to carry out its second execution this year

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PHOENIX (AP) — The state of Arizona is planning to carry out a second execution this year, this time for a man convicted of violently killing four members of a family in 1993 at their home in metro Phoenix.

Prosecutors filed a request Thursday with the Arizona Supreme Court to set a briefing schedule leading up to the execution of Richard Kenneth Djerf, who pleaded guilty to killing Albert Luna Sr., his wife, Patricia, and their 18-year-old daughter Rochelle and 5-year-old son Damien. A judge later sentenced Djerf to death.

If the court agrees to the schedule suggested by prosecutors, the state’s highest court would consider the request for Djerf’s execution warrant in late July, with the execution likely occurring in early September.

The Associated Press has sent an email seeking comment to attorneys who represented Djerf.

Two months ago, Arizona executed 53-year-old Aaron Brian Gunches in the 2002 killing of Ted Price, marking the state’s first use of the death penalty in over two years

Gunches’ execution had originally been scheduled for April 2023, but it was called off after Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered a review of the state’s death penalty procedures. Late last year, Hobbs fired the retired judge she had appointed to conduct the review, and the state’s corrections department announced changes in the team that lethally injects death row prisoners.

Arizona, which has 111 prisoners on death row, has been heavily criticized for its use of the death penalty. It underwent a nearly eight-year hiatus in the use of the death penalty after a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining drugs for execution.