Arizona on track for 1st execution since 2014

(KYMA, KECY/ AP NEWS) - Arizona remains on track to use the death penalty for the first time in nearly eight years in an execution in which the condemned prisoner is being given the option of being put to death by the gas chamber.

The gas chamber is a method that hasn’t been used in the U.S. in decades.

Clarence Dixon’s warrant for execution sets a Thursday deadline for deciding whether he will be put to death with an injection or with hydrogen cyanide gas for his murder conviction in the 1977 killing of an Arizona State University student.

The last gas chamber execution in the United States occurred in 1999 in Arizona before the country rejected the brutal nature of the deaths.

The execution is scheduled for May 11th, though prosecutors have said it will likely be delayed if a judge goes forward with a May 3rd hearing to determine whether Dixon is mentally fit to be executed.