Executions loom in Arizona, Florida

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From wire reports

Condemned men in two states face execution in coming weeks, including one who tried to have his execution date moved forward.

Michael Tanzi, 48, is scheduled to be executed April 8 at Florida State Prison in Starke, Florida, The Associated Press reported. He was convicted in the April 2000 kidnapping, sexually assault and fatal strangulation of a woman.

Tanzi’s execution could be Florida’s third so far this year. James Dennis Ford was put to death in February for murdering a couple in 1997 in Charlotte County. Edward James is scheduled to be executed March 20 for murdering a woman and raping and killing her 8-year-old-granddaughter in Seminole County in 1993.

In Arizona, Aaron Brian Gunches, 53, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection March 19 for his murder conviction in the 2002 shooting death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near Mesa, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb, the AP reported in a second story.

Price’s sister, Karen Price, said Ted was killed because he had threatened to report his girlfriend to child welfare authorities for doing drugs in front of her children.

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.

Arizona, which has 112 prisoners on death row, last carried out three executions in 2022 following a nearly eight-year hiatus.