Arizona is set for its 2nd execution this year. It could be torturous

Arizona is set to kill its second death row prisoner this year, but experts warn his execution could be torturous.

On Friday, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry will kill 55-year-old Richard Djerf via lethal injection at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. Djerf has spent nearly 30 years on death row after he held a family hostage in their west Phoenix home before killing them all in 1993. He was given four death sentences.

Djerf’s scheduled execution follows Arizona’s killing of prisoner Aaron Gunches in March. Gunches was the first prisoner Arizona put to death in more than two years and the first under Gov. Katie Hobbs. Arizona carried out a series of flawed executions in the waning days of GOP Gov. Doug Ducey’s final term in 2022, leading Hobbs to pause the practice upon taking office. Arizona resumed executions earlier this year with Gunches’ death.

And though Gunches’ execution — which Gunches did not fight in court — appeared to go smoothly, experts warn that Djerf could suffer mightily when he is put to death. The drug used for executions in Arizona, pentobarbital, is supposed to render a person unconscious before quickly and peacefully stopping the body’s core functions.

But many experts, including Virginia law professor Corinna Barrett Lain, say something much more agonizing often goes on below the surface. Lain — who was in Phoenix last week to talk about her book on lethal injection, “Secrets of the Killing State” — said patients who die by lethal injection often suffer pulmonary edema while not fully anesthetized, meaning they painfully die as their lungs fill up with fluid.

Gunches’ execution appeared to go smoothly, and an autopsy performed on him after his death found no evidence of pulmonary edema. That “surprised” Lain, who had filed an amicus brief with the Arizona Supreme Court prior to the execution to argue that it could not be performed humanely. She worries that Djerf — or any prisoner on death row — won’t be so fortunate in the future.

“We get to tell ourselves, these people are drifting off to forever sleep,” Lain told Phoenix New Times. “State violence is out of sight, out of mind.”

Lethal injection is “inherently problematic,” she said. Instead of peacefully nodding off to a permanent sleep, Djerf may experience something more akin to waterboarding, a torture method that simulates drowning. Autopsies of people killed by lethal injection often reveal severe pulmonary edema. Prisoners, who are strapped to a chair and cannot move, sometimes wind up gasping for air as their lungs fill with blood and plasma.

In 2019, one doctor told a federal court that not being able to breathe during drowning or asphyxiation is “one of the most powerful, excruciating feelings known to man.” That doctor noted that “unresponsive” is not the same as ‘unconscious” and that it is “extremely likely that prisoners given even high doses of barbiturates retain consciousness long enough to experience pain and suffering during the execution process.” That same year, a federal judge ruled that pulmonary edema in lethal injection cases reached the Supreme Court’s standard for cruel and unusual punishment. 

In 2020, NPR conducted an investigation of pulmonary edema cases in lethal injection cases. In a review of more than 200 autopsies, 84% of inmates showed signs of edema. Autopsies of nine Arizona death row prisoners executed since 2011 showed clear signs of pulmonary edema, according to the Arizona Mirror. That’s all but one of the executed prisoners over that span. 

“The only way lethal injection makes sense is because it hides the violence of state killing,” Lain said. “It only does one thing well. And that’s it.”

Arizona’s execution history

Arizona has a long history of botched executions. 

In 2014, it took the state two hours and 15 doses of a two-drug cocktail to kill Joseph Wood, which led to an eight-year pause on executions. In 2022, Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich resumed executions, which continued to be plagued with errors. Three more prisoners were killed via lethal injection under Brnovich. In each case, the executions struggled to insert the veins into the men they were killing.

Hobbs and Brnovich’s successor, Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, paused executions again to review the state’s execution protocols. Hobbs tapped retired federal magistrate judge David Duncan — who moderated the discussion of Lain’s book at Changing Hands last week — to examine the state’s lethal injection practices.

But Hobbs fired Duncan in November 2024 before he could complete his report, which was to include a finding that there’s no humane way to practically perform lethal injections. At the same time, Republican Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell was pressing the state to resume executions and even sought to obtain death warrants herself. Arizona sought a death warrant for Gunches soon after Duncan was fired, forestalling a legal battle with Mitchell over who has the authority to seek death warrants.

In place of Duncan’s final report, Hobbs relied on an internal review by the state prison system that said Arizona was set to resume executions. That report elided several of Duncan’s preliminary findings, including that the state stored lethal drugs in unlabeled mason jars and procured them by mailing them to a private home in the East Valley. It also suggested that the only execution method that would be quicker and less prone to screw-ups would be a firing squad, which is barred by state law.

Duncan’s firing put Gunches on the execution calendar, though controversies remained. Gunches advocated for his own execution. Last week, Duncan told New Times that Gunches’ eagerness to die may have made it easier to overlook potential flaws in the system.

“If you look at Arizona’s legal history on this,” Duncan said, “all sorts of important things were learned through that process that are not learned when you don’t have a contested execution.”

Gunches was executed on March 19.

Djerf was 23 years old when he exacted brutal revenge for a robbery committed by coworker Albert Luna Jr. in September 1993. Djerf held his coworker’s family hostage at gunpoint, raping and killing Luna’s sister, bashing the head of Luna’s father with a baseball bat before shooting Luna’s father, mother and five-year-old brother. He then doused the room in gasoline, turned on the stove burners and left.

After bragging to his girlfriend and others about the murders, he was arrested four days later and then charged with several crimes, including burglary, kidnapping, aggravated assault and murder. Three years later, Djerf pleaded guilty to four charges of first-degree murder after confessing to the crimes.

Djerf is not contesting his execution, at least not anymore. He has exhausted all his appeals, the last of which was denied in 2019. In a media statement shared with the Arizona Republic, Djerf expressed remorse for his actions and said he couldn’t think of a reason for his life to be saved. He won’t seek clemency.

“I have had a lot of time to review my life over the past 32 years,” Djerf wrote. “While I am not the same person that I was on that terrible day, I can’t claim that I am a good person. I am more thoughtful and I understand how much damage I have done.”