By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- An Arizona Senate panel voted Tuesday to recommend confirmation of a new head of the state prison system after he assured them his agency is ready to again start executing inmates on death row.
But it will be months -- if not longer -- until that happens. And that has to do with policies set by Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes.
The issue of the willingness of Ryan Thornell to carry out the ultimate penalty is crucial to lawmakers because he was the one who told the Arizona Supreme Court earlier this year his agency was not prepared to put Aaron Gunches to death as scheduled on April 6.
In a March 15, affidavit, Thornell, the choice of Hobbs to head the state Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry told the justices that when he took over in January he was lacking historical information on everything from how executions were carried out in the past to questions about whether there were people who had the expertise to insert the intravenous lines available to administer the drugs.
And on top of that, he said, there were issues about whether the drugs could be prepared.
"My inquiries have revealed cause for concern with the department's present ability to carry out an execution consistent with its constitutional and legal obligations,'' Thornell told the court.
As a result, the original warrant expired and the Supreme Court refused to extend the date.
Gunches remains alive and incarcerated.
Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, who heads the committee tasked with reviewing all of the governor's nominations to head state agencies, asked Thornell whether he was disregarding the warrant to execute Gunches.
"We want departments and department heads, specifically, that will follow the law,'' he said.
But Thornell said he did no such thing.
"The warrant of execution was an authorization, not an order,'' he told Hoffman, allowing -- but not requiring -- his agency to execute Gunches. And that position, he said, was backed by the governor and attorney general.
With no active warrants against Gunches or anyone else, that returned the situation to the way it was in January when Hobbs issued an executive order to study of the processes and procedures used to put people to death.
Arizona resumed executions last year after an eight-year pause following the botched procedure when Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours. Three inmates were put to death in 2022.
Hobbs, in ordering the study, said the process has remained plagued by questions.
"Recent executions have been embroiled in controversy,'' she said. There were reports that prison employees had repeated problems in placing the intravenous line into the veins of the condemned men.
"The death penalty is a controversial issue to begin with,'' the governor continued. "We just want to make sure the practices are sound and that we don't end up with botched executions like we've seen recently.''
The governor appointed David Duncan, a retired federal magistrate, to conduct the study. But the governor has not placed any deadline on Duncan to report, meaning no one will be executed at least until that is done.
And Mayes, in tandem, announced she would not seek additional warrants until that study is completed.
But Thornell assured lawmakers that he's not the one standing in the way of executions. He said the issues that left his agency unprepared to put Gunches to death in April have now been resolved.
"We have gone through all of our review, all of our preparation,'' he said. That includes putting the necessary staff in place and contacting the individuals who can insert the necessary intravenous lines, ensure they work and monitoring the administration of the lethal drugs.
The final step, Thornell said, depends on the Supreme Court issuing a new warrant of execution, whether for Gunches or any of the other 107 men and three women on "death row.'' That deals with compounding the necessary drugs, something he said needs to be properly timed because of the shelf life of those chemicals.
And Thornell reassured lawmakers that, while he came to Arizona from the Maine prison system, which has no death penalty, he is not opposed to it.
Executions were not the only questions that lawmakers had for the nominee who now needs a vote of the full Senate to be confirmed.
Hoffman said he understands that the goal of providing educational opportunities for those behind bars is to help inmates "pull themselves up so they don't end up coming back in.'' But he questioned why the state should spend money on felons.
"People that haven't been incarcerated are expected to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps,'' Hoffman asked, without the same state dollars.
"It's what our responsibility is,'' Thornell responded, noting the word "rehabilitation'' was added to the name of the agency in 2020 by then-Gov. Doug Ducey.
"I understand there's always going to be public perspective that people who are incarcerated don't deserve any opportunities, access to things,'' he continued. "But if we're going to reduce future victims, if we're going to reduce recidivism, the only way to do that while they're incarcerated with us is we have to invest the resources.''
Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, questioned Thornell's views on the use of force to keep order and discipline within the prison system.
"You can't say, 'Do that again, I'm going to throw you in prison' because they're already there,'' said the former police officer. What that often left, Kavanagh said, is the use of solitary confinement.
"I firmly support the use of force,'' Thornell responded.
"It is necessary,'' he said. "We are incarcerating felons, dangerous felons.''
But Thornell said there are a "whole host of strategies'' that can be employed in a prison to keep order.
"It doesn't always have to result in a placement in solitary confinement or a removal from the general population,'' he said. And what that can mean, Thornell said, is a system that provides incentives for good behavior.
"They earn their way toward release, they earn their way towards televisions, communications devices, technology access,'' he said.
Still, Thornell said, solitary has to be in the mix.
"It's been over-utilized in the past, which is why it's been focused on significantly in recent years,'' he said.
"What I see solitary confinement, restrictive housing being used for here is in response to dangerous incidents, dangerous individuals, incidents that threaten other inmates, that threaten staff,'' Thornell explained. "And then we use it for the duration that's necessary and then they go back out into general population and get put into an environment where they then have to earn their incentives back.''
But Thornell also acknowledged that there is a separate problem of actions by corrections officers.
"There has been a string in the last 60 days of use-of-force incidents in our complexes that went outside the scope of our use-of-force policies,'' he said. Thornell said these have occurred both in the prisons run and staffed by the state as well as the private prisons that have contracts to house inmates.
"I do not take that lightly,'' he told lawmakers.
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