Last Minute Stay Of Execution Denied For Man Set to Die Wednesday

TUCSON, AZ — Frank Atwood is still scheduled to be put to death Wednesday, after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request Tuesday for a stay of execution.

The appeals court upheld a ruling made over the weekend by the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, with both courts agreeing that the scheduled execution would not violate Atwood's constitutional rights.

It's expected that Atwood will ask the U.S. Supreme Court for a last minute stay.

Atwood is set to be put to death by lethal injection after his conviction in the 1984 kidnapping and murder of 8-year-old Vicki Hoskinson.

Atwood was accused of kidnapping the girl while she was mailing a birthday card to her aunt. The girl's remains were found in the desert northwest of Tucson around seven months after she disappeared. Her cause of death could not be determined, because of how decomposed her remains were when they were found.

Atwood continues to claim that he is innocent.

In a last minute attempt to delay his execution, Atwood claimed that the execution would violate his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment because the position he would have to lay in for the lethal injection would cause him "unimaginable pain" because of a degenerative spine condition.

The state has agreed to provide accommodations during the execution so that Atwood will be in a position similar to the way he rests in his cell, instead of flat on his back as is typical during executions.

The court also found insufficient evidence that his due process rights were violated and found that Atwood had no standing to challenge the state's lethal gas protocol since he's set to be execution by lethal injection.

"Capital punishment is the appropriate response to those who commit the most shocking and vile murders because it ensures the last word still belongs to the innocent victims who can no longer speak for themselves," Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement following the 9th Circuit's ruling.

Atwood is the second man to be put to death via lethal injection within a month's time. Clarence Dixon, executed May 11, was the first person to be put to death by the state in Arizona since 2014. The hiatus was because of the lethal injection of Joseph Wood in 2014 that his lawyers called botched and because Arizona struggled to find a supplier for lethal injection drugs because many companies don't want to be associated with the process.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.