Arizona | Death Row Inmate Challenges Execution Warrant, Citing 2025 Cyberattack and Protocol Failures

Leroy Dean McGill was sentenced to death for a 2002 gasoline attack in North Phoenix against a couple, Charles Perez and Nova Banta.

PHOENIX — Attorneys for Arizona death row inmate Leroy Dean McGill have formally challenged the state’s attempt to secure an execution warrant, citing a catastrophic 2025 cyberattack and a long history of troubled lethal injection protocols.

The challenge comes as Arizona seeks to resume capital punishment following a year-long hiatus. If the Arizona Supreme Court grants the state’s request, McGill would become the first person executed in the state since 2024.

Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a motion earlier this month requesting a briefing schedule for a warrant of execution. Under the proposed timeline, McGill could face a tentative execution date as early as May 20, 2026.

The Crime

McGill, 58, was convicted for a 2002 attack in North Phoenix against Charles Perez and Nova Banta. Prosecutors said McGill doused the couple with a gasoline-and-soap mixture before setting them on fire. Perez died from his injuries; Banta survived with permanent, life-altering scarring.

The attack was rooted in a personal vendetta involving a stolen shotgun and a series of grievances that spiraled into extreme violence. According to court records, the victims accused McGill and his girlfriend of stealing a shotgun from a mutual friend’s apartment. The accusation led to McGill’s eviction, effectively leaving him homeless.

Enraged by the loss of his housing, McGill sought retribution. On the night of the attack, McGill warned a neighbor to remove his family from the duplex because he intended to "teach Perez and Yates a lesson."

Trial testimony revealed a high level of premeditation designed to inflict maximum pain. McGill mixed gasoline with Styrofoam to create a thickened, napalm-like gel. The substance was designed to stick to the victims' skin and burn at a higher temperature, making the flames nearly impossible to extinguish.

McGill has spent more than 20 years on death row. His appeals have focused on a traumatic childhood, mental health issues, and an "ex post facto" claim regarding the application of Arizona’s death penalty statutes.

Massive Cyberattack

In a response filed with the state’s high court, the Arizona Federal Public Defender’s Office argued that moving forward with an execution date now would violate McGill’s due process rights.

The defense highlighted a spring 2025 cyberattack that crippled the office’s internal servers. Attorneys claim the breach resulted in the loss or corruption of decades of case files, medical records, and investigative notes essential for preparing a clemency petition.

"To proceed with an execution when the defense is literally rebuilding the record of a 20-year-old case is a move toward a procedural failure, not justice," defense experts noted in the filing.

Lingering Protocol Concerns

The challenge also leans heavily on Arizona's history with lethal injection. McGill’s team has raised questions about the state's ability to carry out executions humanely, pointing to a legacy of "botched" procedures and questionable drug procurement.

The state has faced repeated scrutiny for its methods. In 2011 and 2015, Arizona attempted to illegally import sodium thiopental from a non-FDA-approved supplier in Great Britain and a middleman in India. Those shipments were seized by the DEA and federal customs agents.

Records show the state has spent as much as $1.5 million on a single batch of pentobarbital, often sourced from undisclosed compounding pharmacies. In several instances, these high-priced drugs expired before they could be used due to legal stays.

The defense also cited the 2014 execution of Joseph Wood, who gasped for nearly two hours after being injected 15 times, and 2022 cases where execution teams struggled for up to an hour to find suitable veins in inmates Clarence Dixon and Frank Atwood.

The Road Ahead

The legal battle is moving on a compressed timeline.

Following McGill’s formal response on March 20, the state issued a reply on March 24, maintaining that McGill has exhausted his standard appeals and that the victims’ families have waited over two decades for justice.

The Arizona Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a conference on the matter March 26, 2026. If the court rules in favor of the state, a warrant will be issued immediately, triggering a 35-day countdown to the execution.

Source: DPN, News outlets, Staff, AI, March 25, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Death Penalty News For a World without the Death Penalty

Comments

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial. The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend. Since Chiba pleaded n...

Saudi Arabia: Man beheaded for murder

April 27, 2010: Saudi authorities executed a man by beheading after he was sentenced to death for murder, the interior ministry announced. Saudi national Umair al-Shihri was put to death in the southern city of Bisha for shooting to death another Saudi, Muzakkir al Shahrani, with a machine gun, according to the announcement carried by the state news agency SPA. No details were given about the date or location of the crime, but the ministry said the execution had been put on hold until the victim's children came of age. Source: Agence France Presse, April 27, 2010

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Tennessee | Complaint accuses doctor involved in failed execution of violating medical ethics

A formal complaint has been filed with the Tennessee Department of Health regarding the conduct of a physician involved in the failed execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers on May 21, 2026. The complaint, submitted by Carruthers’ sister, Tonya Hervey on July 15, alleges that Dr. Mark Walton Fowler engaged in unethical medical practices during the aborted procedure. The state’s attempt to execute Carruthers was halted after execution team members spent over an hour unsuccessfully attempting to establish a backup intravenous (IV) line. While a primary line was established, the team’s failure to secure the secondary access required by state protocol led Governor Bill Lee to grant a one-year reprieve.

Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

Why America’s death rows are slowly emptying

The number of death sentences handed out by juries has plunged by more than 90% since the 1990s. On July 8, the Death Penalty Information Center, or DPIC, released its midyear update on capital punishment in the United States. Many of the findings were sadly, disturbingly familiar. For example, racial bias still plays a large role in who gets executed, and the Supreme Court continues to allow executions to proceed even when those being put to death have strong claims of innocence. But there was also encouraging news.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog