Eighth District Judge Jennifer Togliatti, Clark County, NV, ordered prosecutors to draft and deliver a death warrant for Scott Raymond Dozier on July 27. Prosecutors honored her request. Judge Togliatti signed the warrant for execution on Thursday. Dozier will meet the execution team at Ely State Prison during the week of October 16, 2017. He is slated to die by lethal injection.
Under Nevada state law, Dozier has to be executed no earlier than 60 days after the judge signed the Death Warrant and no more than 90 days following. If everything goes according to schedule, the state will carry out its first execution since 2006, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Dozier will also be the first of Nevada’s death row inmates to experience the state’s new $860,000, ADA compliant execution chamber.
Dozier was sentenced to die in December 2007. He was found guilty of murdering and mutilating Arizonan Jeremiah Miller, 22-years-old. He robbed Miller of $12,000 that Miller intended to use for purchasing materials to make methamphetamine.
Death row inmate not deterred from wish to die
Judge Togliatti asked the condemned inmate at Thursday’s brief court hearing if he had concerns with the drug combinations that may be injected to carry out the capital punishment against him. Dozier responded that his goal of dying by lethal injection was not swayed by other reported cases.
Ohio’s 2014 botched execution of Dennis McQuire, for instance, did not affect Dozier’s death wish. He told the judge that he is “ready to go.”
Clark County’s Assistant District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci assured the judge that the state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) confirmed that the drugs needed to carry out the execution will be obtained.
While Pesci wasn’t able to tell Togliatti the name of the drug or drug mix that will be injected, he did inform the court that one of the DOC’s stockpiled drugs “expired recently,” according to the American Bar Association Journal. The state does not have a mandated execution injection protocol.
State will follow laws and protocol in executing inmate
According to the law in Nevada, the state must carry out executions by lethal injection the Nevada Independent reported. Last year, the state’s prison officials sent requests to 247 vendors in search for one of the drugs needed for conducting executions. Not even a lone response was received.
The DOC offered a brief statement on Thursday, assuring that the agency is getting guidance from the Attorney General’s office. The DOC also stated that it plans to follow state law and “all appropriate legal protocol,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
A majority of death row inmates end up dying in prison, according to the Nevada Independent.
It is rare for a condemned prisoner to volunteer for capital punishment. Since 1977, the state has exacted 12 executions. With Dozier’s request to be put to death, along with the judge’s signature on the warrant, the condemned inmate voluntarily gave up his ability to appeal death by lethal injection.
