By Howard Fischer | Arizona Capitol Times
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has dropped her bid to have the Supreme Court declare that she has as much right as Attorney General Kris Mayes to seek an execution warrant.
But the decision doesn’t resolve the legal issue. Instead, it simply defers the fight for another day.
“We’re absolutely not conceding,” Mitchell told Capitol Media Services on Tuesday.
In legal papers filed with the high court, Mitchell pointed out to the justices that she was asking them to set briefings to begin the process of finally getting an order to execute Aaron Gunches.
That request was filed in June, during the time that Mayes was refusing to move ahead even though Gunches had exhausted all of his appeals. Instead, the attorney general said she wanted to wait for a final report from a special commissioner hired by Gov. Katie Hobbs, who was reviewing the process to prevent future “botched” executions.
