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Arizona’s Supreme Court has issued a warrant setting May 20 as the execution date for Leroy Dean McGill, a 63-year-old man convicted in the 2002 death of Charles Perez, the Associated Press reported. The scheduling, announced in a Thursday warrant, would mark Arizona’s first use of the death penalty in 2026.
The court’s order follows a request from McGill’s attorneys that the justices hold off on issuing an execution warrant while they pursued legal claims. The defense also argued that jurors were given incorrect instructions during the sentencing phase, among other issues raised in their latest litigation push.
Prosecutors said McGill carried out the fatal attack in north Phoenix when he threw a cup of gasoline and a lit match at Perez and another person, Nova Banta, who was sitting with Perez on a sofa in an apartment. Banta survived but suffered third-degree burns covering about three-quarters of her body, authorities said.
In her trial testimony, Banta identified McGill as her attacker. Authorities also said that before the incident, McGill had been accused by Perez and Banta of stealing a gun from their apartment.
At trial in 2004, jurors deliberated for less than an hour before convicting McGill. The jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in Perez’s death, attempted murder for the attack on Banta, and arson and endangerment involving other people who escaped after the fire forced them to flee from the apartment and a nearby unit where flames had spread.
McGill’s lawyers asked jurors for leniency, presenting evidence that McGill suffered abuse as a child and arguing that he had mental impairment and psychological immaturity. Despite the defense presentation, the jury returned a death sentence.
After the court’s decision to issue the warrant, Jennifer Garcia, McGill’s lawyer, said in a statement that they would continue to stand by him and “recognize the power of rehabilitation and the growth he has shown by building a positive and meaningful life in prison,” while also acknowledging “the profound loss for the victims and their families and wish them peace.”
Arizona used the death penalty twice in 2025, with the executions of Richard Kenneth Djerf and Aaron Gunches. In 2022, the state carried out three executions after a nearly eight-year hiatus that had followed criticism over a 2014 execution that prosecutors and courts described as botched and difficulties in obtaining drugs for executions. In 2014, Joseph Wood was injected with 15 doses of a two-drug combination over about two hours, leading to repeated snorting and hundreds of gasps before he died, according to the Associated Press account.
Arizona currently has 108 prisoners on death row.