Idaho seeks to execute longtime death row inmate Gerald Pizzuto, again. What we know
For the third time in two years, Idaho has issued a death warrant for inmate Gerald Pizzuto, seeking to execute him next month.
Attorney General Raúl Labrador announced Friday morning the latest effort to fulfill the death sentence of Pizzuto, a convicted murderer, seeking a conclusion to his decades-old conviction. His execution — now the state’s fifth attempt to do so — is scheduled for March 23.
Labrador, a former Idaho Republican congressman, has been in the new role just eight weeks.
“Idaho law is clear: Those who commit the most egregious crimes deserve the ultimate punishment,” Labrador said in a statement. “Pizzuto was sentenced to death. We followed the law and obtained a new death warrant.”
Pizzuto, 66, has remained on Idaho death row since his 1986 conviction for the murder of two people at a cabin north of McCall. He is terminally ill with late-stage bladder cancer, among a host of serious ailments, and been under hospice care for more than three years.
Idaho can’t obtain lethal drugs
Idaho most recently pursued Pizzuto’s death by lethal injection in November. But the state prison system proved unable to obtain the execution drugs needed to fulfill his death sentence, indefinitely postponing his planned Dec. 15 execution.
Labrador said the Idaho Department of Correction, which is tasked with executing Pizzuto, is now in the process of trying to find the lethal injection drugs it failed to obtain just three months ago. The state prison system does not currently possess the drugs necessary for the execution, the Department of Correction confirmed.
“Efforts to lawfully source chemicals are ongoing,” an IDOC news release said.
IDOC noted that prison officials at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution outside Kuna, where Pizzuto is housed, served him the death warrant just before noon on Friday. Labrador’s press release about obtaining a new death warrant for Pizzuto was emailed to news outlets at 11:12 a.m.
It is unclear what, if anything, has changed in that execution drug procurement process since the last time the state tried to execute Pizzuto. State prisons director Josh Tewalt told the agency’s board in December that officials have been unable to acquire the drugs to execute an inmate.
“While our efforts to secure chemicals remain ongoing, I have no reason to believe our status will change prior to the scheduled execution,” Tewalt wrote to the state prison’s board at that time. “In my professional judgment, I believe it is in the best interest of justice to allow the death warrant to expire and stand down our execution preparation.”
Bill would allow firing squad executions
State Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, a former Ada County deputy prosecutor, introduced on Wednesday a bill that would restore use of a firing squad as a backup method of execution. The attorney general’s office helped author the bill, spokesperson Emily Kleinworth told the Statesman on Thursday, and Labrador was “personally involved,” she said.
On Friday, Labrador emphasized his hope that Idaho lawmakers would pass House Bill 186. The proposed legislation has yet to receive a hearing date in the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee, which Skaug chairs. If the firing squad bill advances with a majority from that 18-member committee, it would move on to the House floor for an initial vote.
“We hope the Legislature will also consider giving the state an alternative method of execution,” Labrador said in the statement.
Gov. Brad Little would entertain signing the bill, if passed by the Legislature, a spokesperson for the Republican governor, told the Statesman on Thursday.
“Gov. Little supports capital punishment and will continue to support policies adopted by the Legislature that enable the state of Idaho to successfully and constitutionally carry out the death penalty,” Madison Hardy, Little’s spokesperson, said by email.
The nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho, which represents Pizzuto, lambasted the latest attempt to execute its client, and questioned the intent behind Labrador seeking Pizzuto’s death warrant.
“We are devastated and horrified that the state would once again seek a death warrant for Mr. Pizzuto without having any of the chemicals necessary to carry out his execution,” Deborah Czuba, supervising attorney of the nonprofit’s unit that oversees death penalty cases, said in a statement. “After the prior two execution warrants, it does not make sense.
“We find the timing of the warrant particularly curious, given that it was sought by Attorney General Labrador while he advocates for a new law that would bring back the firing squad as a method of execution in Idaho,” Czuba added.
This story was originally published February 24, 2023 at 11:48 AM.
