Arizona
Death row inmate will not ask for a reprieve
PHOENIX (AP) — A prisoner scheduled to be executed next week in what would be Arizona’s first use of the death penalty in over two years will not ask for a reprieve from his death sentence.
Aaron Brian Gunches, 53, is not expected to participate in a hearing Monday before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, which will note on the record that he has waived his right to ask for relief.
He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on March 19 for his murder conviction in the 2002 shooting death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.
Gunches, who isn’t a lawyer but is representing himself, made an unsuccessful bid late last year to skip legal formalities and schedule his execution earlier than authorities were aiming for. His death sentence was “long overdue,” Gunches told Arizona’s highest court, which rejected the request.
In a Feb. 20 filing, Gunches said he didn’t want to be present at Monday’s hearing and noted he made a brief virtual appearance earlier before the board to confirm a clemency waiver he made in 2022.
“My position has not changed,” Gunches wrote in the recent filing.
The Arizona Supreme Court issued a death warrant for Gunches nearly two years ago, but the sentence wasn’t carried out because the state’s Democratic attorney general agreed not to pursue executions during a review of the state’s death penalty protocol. The review ended in November when Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs dismissed the retired federal magistrate judge she had appointed to examine execution procedures.
Arizona, which has 112 prisoners on death row, last carried out three executions in 2022 following a nearly eight-year hiatus brought on by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining drugs for execution.
Since then, the state has been criticized for taking too long to insert an IV for lethal injection into a condemned prisoner.
One significant change made by corrections officials was forming a new, larger team to insert IVs into condemned prisoners after the state had been criticized for taking too long to insert IVs into prisoners.
The Arizona Legislature is considering a proposal aimed at changing the state’s method of execution. If approved by lawmakers, the proposal would ask voters in 2026 to replace lethal injection with a firing squad.
Currently, Arizona death row prisoners whose crimes occurred before Nov. 23, 1992, can choose between lethal injection or the gas chamber, which was refurbished in late 2020 since it was last used for an execution in 1999.
Under current law, those who decline to make the choice or whose crimes occurred after the November 1992 date are to be executed by lethal injection. The proposed ballot measure would keep lethal gas as one of Arizona’s two execution methods for those whose crimes occurred before the 1992 date.
Oklahoma
Three tribes and Native American students sue over Bureau of Indian Education firings
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Three tribal nations and five Native American students say in a lawsuit that the Trump administration has failed its legal obligations to tribes when it cut jobs at Bureau of Indian Education schools.
Firings at two colleges as part of the administration’s cuts to federal agencies, with the help of Elon Musk, have left students and staff with unsafe conditions, canceled classes, and delayed financial aid, according to the lawsuit Friday.
Lawyers at the Native American Rights Fund filed the suit in federal court in the nation’s capital against the heads of the Interior Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Indian Education Programs on behalf of the Pueblo of Isleta, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The tribes allege they were not consulted when the federal government laid off several employees at the two colleges under the purview of the BIE.
Nearly one-quarter of the staff at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, including nine instructors, were fired or forced to resign in February. The lawsuit alleges that security and maintenance firings have left the campus unsafe, including two power outages in the past few weeks that went unresolved due to the lack of staff.
One SIPI student named in the lawsuit, Kaiya Brown, said in the filing that her dorm was without power for 13 hours.
Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas lost more than one-quarter of its staff, including “the Dean of Students, instructors, property management specialists, coaches, tutors, residential advisors, academic advisors, custodians, and food services employees” as well as its only bus driver, the lawsuit states. It also notes that Haskell’s student center has been shuttered and students reported their financial aid has either been delayed or has not been disbursed.
Students also reported reduced meal sizes, bathrooms without toilet paper, and classes that are now being taught by deans who do not have the same expertise as the professors who were fired.
Both institutions report that some staff and faculty have been rehired, but “BIE notified those individuals that this might be temporary and they may be laid off again,” according to the lawsuit.
The BIA said it was department policy to not comment on pending litigation. A spokesperson for the Interior Department declined to comment.
The BIE is responsible for providing educational opportunities for Native Americans and Alaska Natives across the country, part of the U.S. government’s trust responsibilities — the legal and moral obligations the U.S. has to protect and uphold treaties, laws and congressional acts dealing with tribes.
There are 183 bureau-funded elementary and secondary schools on 64 reservations in 23 states, that serve about 42,000 Indian students, according to the BIE’s website. It says 55 are BIE-operated and 128 are tribally operated.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has highlighted for several years significant understaffing at the BIE that has impacted its ability to monitor and assist schools.
One of the federal government’s obligations to tribal nations is to provide meaningful consultation before it takes any action that could possibly harm tribes or their services, said Hershel Gorham, lieutenant governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, which has 35 students at Haskell. “In this case there is no consultation that was done, not only from the BIA and BIE, but the federal government in general.”
Recent cuts to the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services that affect tribal citizens and were later rescinded might show that Doug Burgum and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the respective secretaries of those departments, understand those trust responsibilities, Gorham said, but also might suggest they don’t have the autonomy to prevent the violation of those rights for Native Americans.
“Right now it seems like they’re not being given that full autonomy, if you look at the cuts that were made to Haskell, SIPI and the BIE schools,” he said.
Death row inmate will not ask for a reprieve
PHOENIX (AP) — A prisoner scheduled to be executed next week in what would be Arizona’s first use of the death penalty in over two years will not ask for a reprieve from his death sentence.
Aaron Brian Gunches, 53, is not expected to participate in a hearing Monday before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency, which will note on the record that he has waived his right to ask for relief.
He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on March 19 for his murder conviction in the 2002 shooting death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.
Gunches, who isn’t a lawyer but is representing himself, made an unsuccessful bid late last year to skip legal formalities and schedule his execution earlier than authorities were aiming for. His death sentence was “long overdue,” Gunches told Arizona’s highest court, which rejected the request.
In a Feb. 20 filing, Gunches said he didn’t want to be present at Monday’s hearing and noted he made a brief virtual appearance earlier before the board to confirm a clemency waiver he made in 2022.
“My position has not changed,” Gunches wrote in the recent filing.
The Arizona Supreme Court issued a death warrant for Gunches nearly two years ago, but the sentence wasn’t carried out because the state’s Democratic attorney general agreed not to pursue executions during a review of the state’s death penalty protocol. The review ended in November when Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs dismissed the retired federal magistrate judge she had appointed to examine execution procedures.
Arizona, which has 112 prisoners on death row, last carried out three executions in 2022 following a nearly eight-year hiatus brought on by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining drugs for execution.
Since then, the state has been criticized for taking too long to insert an IV for lethal injection into a condemned prisoner.
One significant change made by corrections officials was forming a new, larger team to insert IVs into condemned prisoners after the state had been criticized for taking too long to insert IVs into prisoners.
The Arizona Legislature is considering a proposal aimed at changing the state’s method of execution. If approved by lawmakers, the proposal would ask voters in 2026 to replace lethal injection with a firing squad.
Currently, Arizona death row prisoners whose crimes occurred before Nov. 23, 1992, can choose between lethal injection or the gas chamber, which was refurbished in late 2020 since it was last used for an execution in 1999.
Under current law, those who decline to make the choice or whose crimes occurred after the November 1992 date are to be executed by lethal injection. The proposed ballot measure would keep lethal gas as one of Arizona’s two execution methods for those whose crimes occurred before the 1992 date.
Oklahoma
Three tribes and Native American students sue over Bureau of Indian Education firings
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Three tribal nations and five Native American students say in a lawsuit that the Trump administration has failed its legal obligations to tribes when it cut jobs at Bureau of Indian Education schools.
Firings at two colleges as part of the administration’s cuts to federal agencies, with the help of Elon Musk, have left students and staff with unsafe conditions, canceled classes, and delayed financial aid, according to the lawsuit Friday.
Lawyers at the Native American Rights Fund filed the suit in federal court in the nation’s capital against the heads of the Interior Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Indian Education Programs on behalf of the Pueblo of Isleta, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The tribes allege they were not consulted when the federal government laid off several employees at the two colleges under the purview of the BIE.
Nearly one-quarter of the staff at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, including nine instructors, were fired or forced to resign in February. The lawsuit alleges that security and maintenance firings have left the campus unsafe, including two power outages in the past few weeks that went unresolved due to the lack of staff.
One SIPI student named in the lawsuit, Kaiya Brown, said in the filing that her dorm was without power for 13 hours.
Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas lost more than one-quarter of its staff, including “the Dean of Students, instructors, property management specialists, coaches, tutors, residential advisors, academic advisors, custodians, and food services employees” as well as its only bus driver, the lawsuit states. It also notes that Haskell’s student center has been shuttered and students reported their financial aid has either been delayed or has not been disbursed.
Students also reported reduced meal sizes, bathrooms without toilet paper, and classes that are now being taught by deans who do not have the same expertise as the professors who were fired.
Both institutions report that some staff and faculty have been rehired, but “BIE notified those individuals that this might be temporary and they may be laid off again,” according to the lawsuit.
The BIA said it was department policy to not comment on pending litigation. A spokesperson for the Interior Department declined to comment.
The BIE is responsible for providing educational opportunities for Native Americans and Alaska Natives across the country, part of the U.S. government’s trust responsibilities — the legal and moral obligations the U.S. has to protect and uphold treaties, laws and congressional acts dealing with tribes.
There are 183 bureau-funded elementary and secondary schools on 64 reservations in 23 states, that serve about 42,000 Indian students, according to the BIE’s website. It says 55 are BIE-operated and 128 are tribally operated.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has highlighted for several years significant understaffing at the BIE that has impacted its ability to monitor and assist schools.
One of the federal government’s obligations to tribal nations is to provide meaningful consultation before it takes any action that could possibly harm tribes or their services, said Hershel Gorham, lieutenant governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, which has 35 students at Haskell. “In this case there is no consultation that was done, not only from the BIA and BIE, but the federal government in general.”
Recent cuts to the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services that affect tribal citizens and were later rescinded might show that Doug Burgum and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the respective secretaries of those departments, understand those trust responsibilities, Gorham said, but also might suggest they don’t have the autonomy to prevent the violation of those rights for Native Americans.
“Right now it seems like they’re not being given that full autonomy, if you look at the cuts that were made to Haskell, SIPI and the BIE schools,” he said.
