If Scott Dozier is executed in Nevada, he will get what he wants, according to a defense attorney, Scott Coffee. On Tuesday, prosecutors were ordered by District Judge Jennifer Togliatti to pen and deliver an execution warrant by next week. The state’s law mandates that after the judge signs the order, convicted killer Dozier must be executed after 60 days but not in excess of 90 days. Dozier might be executed by the end of October.
Brooke Keast, spokeswoman for Nevada’s Department of Corrections, said the execution can happen if corrections officials are court-ordered to “make it happen.” Keast didn’t explain how the state can carry out an execution warrant in light of earlier reports that the ability to attain the necessary recipe for the Lethal Injection protocol proved futile.
Dozier has been on death row almost 10 years – post his murder conviction. On October 31, 2016, he wrote the judge and requested that the process affecting his appeal be terminated and conveyed that he wanted to “be put to death.”
Mental evaluation finds ‘no grounds’ to interfere with killer’s death wish
To be certain that the murderer fully grasped the request he penned, Togliatti ordered a psychiatric evaluation. The outcome was a 13-page evaluation by a doctor who wrote there is “no grounds,” such as mental, psychological, or health, to conflict with the condemned killer’s choice to be executed.
The killer wasn’t in court on Tuesday when Togliatti read from the evaluation report but is expected to be present at a hearing on July 27, which is when the judge could sign his execution warrant.
His expressed goal, he told Togliatti earlier in the year, is to be executed “first and foremost.”
On Tuesday, Tom Ericsson, the killer’s attorney, told Togliatti that his client’s stance still stands. Contrary to his lawyer’s direction and counsel, Dozier is firm about waiving his appellate rights. He described his client as “quite adamant” about his position on the subject.
Condemned man murdered and mutilated victim
Dozier landed himself on death row following a four-week trial December 2017 for murdering and, then, mutilating 22-year-old, Arizonan Jeremiah Miller at the (now) closed La Concha Motel. He also robbed his victim of $12,000 that Miller took with him from Phoenix to Las Vegas to buy materials that were needed to make methamphetamine.
The killer cut up Miller’s torso into two pieces – discovered in a suitcase and in a trash bin at an apartment complex April 2002. The victim’s head, lower legs, and lower arms were never found.
In Arizona 2005, he was convicted and received 22 years in prison for second-degree murder. He shot to death a man, age 27, then, stuffed the man’s body in a plastic container. He dumped the man’s body near Phoenix in the desert.
Killer made the call to halt appeals
His attorney Ericsson informed the judge that Dozier wanted the right to go ahead with post-conviction appeals if Nevada was not able to execute him. In less than a month, he stopped his appeals after prison authorities announced that they received no response to 247 requests sent when the state searched for, at least, one of the drugs used in its lethal injection protocol.
Since Nevada’s Legislature reinstated capital punishment in 1977, 12 inmates have been executed. Eleven of those executed voluntarily stopped appeals. Coffee is a defense attorney who has dealt with approximately 20 capital punishment cases in 15 years. As well, he analyzes death penalty cases in the United States. He is anticipating that there will be some type of intervention.
Killer could change mind about his execution
Dozier could change his mind and appeal to try stopping his execution up until the eleventh hour prior to when the death sentence is exacted. Another way it may be halted is by a third party, without a direct tie to the case like the American Civil Liberties Union, trying to intervene by filing a legal challenge.
If his client is executed, Dozier’s lawyer said, it’s not because Nevada wanted it. It will be because it’s what Dozier wants. If his client is put to death, Coffee said it isn’t anything other than “state-assisted suicide.”
