Arizona authorities executed Clarence Dixon on Wednesday for the 1978 rape and murder of an Arizona State University student, despite attempts by Dixon’s lawyers to stop the execution. Dixon’s execution was the first in Arizona since 2014. On Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld District Judge Diane Humetewa’s decision to deny the habeas corpus petition and stay the execution. by Dixon. Dixon sought relief on the grounds that an Arizona state court wrongly declared him “competent to execute” even though Dixon suffered from schizophrenia and that Dixon had been found “not guilty by reason of insanity” in a 1977 assault trial. In his opinion, Circuit Judge Daniel Bress said:[T]The state court correctly…asked whether Dixon “lacks a rational understanding of the State’s justification for his execution.” The court ultimately concluded that Dixon had not made this showing because, although Dixon “has a mental disorder or mental illness of schizophrenia,” this illness “can fall within a broad spectrum” and does not “by itself decide the question of competition”. ”The state court issued its ruling that Dixon was competent to be executed last week. Arizona currently has 113 inmates on death row. The execution of mentally ill prisoners has attracted widespread criticism. In March, the Kentucky Senate passed a bill preventing the execution of inmates with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, following similar initiatives passed in Ohio.