© 2025 KNAU Arizona Public Radio
Arizona Public Radio | Your Source for NPR News
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Arizona to Kill More Convicted Killers

KNAU News Talk - Arizona Public Radio | By Nadine Arroyo Rodriguez
Published March 20, 2012 at 4:24 PM MST

The Arizona Supreme Court granted a motion today to execute two more Arizona inmates this year.  The dates are set for the next two months. 

The execution date for 63-year-old Thomas Arnold Kemp Jr. has been set for April 25.  

Kemp was sentenced to death for kidnapping a man from a fast-food restaurant at gun point and killing him in 1992. 

Also, the execution date for 48-year-old Samuel Villegas Lopez has been set for May 16. 

He was convicted of raping, robbing and stabbing to death a 59-year-old woman in her Phoenix apartment in 1986. 

This will bring the total number of executions in Arizona so far this year to four. 
  
Tags
KNAU and Arizona News death penaltyexecutions
Nadine Arroyo Rodriguez
Nadine is a Senior Field Correspondent (Phoenix) who focuses on stories throughout the southwest and issues that directly affect Arizona’s Latino community. She is an Emmy-nominated journalist and a Telly Award winner. She is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism and earned a Masters in Education from Northern Arizona University.
See stories by Nadine Arroyo Rodriguez
Related Content
  • Death row inmate Troy Davis in an undated photo released by the Georgia Department of Corrections.
    Death Penalty Retains Support, Even With Pro-Life Catholics, Despite Flaws
    Liz Halloran
    Death penalty opponents seized on the execution of Davis, whose conviction of killing a police officer was based on questionable eyewitness accounts, as an event that could turn the tide against state-sponsored executions. History, however, suggests that despite outrage in some quarters over the killing of Davis and other executions, public opinion will remain firmly supportive.
  • <p>Protesters gather outside the building where Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles members held a hearing for death row inmate Troy Davis in Sept. 2011. </p>
    Poll: Support For Death Penalty At 39-Year Low
    Eyder Peralta
    Support for the death penalty in the United States is at its lowest level since 1972, when the Supreme Court issued a moratorium on existing capital cases. Still, 61 percent of Americans support the death penalty.
  • Earth Notes
    Death Penalty Apology
    By Howard Fischerhttp://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-500992.mp32/21/06 – Ray Krone was arrested, charged, convicted…
  • Earth Notes
    Death Penalty Debate
    By Theresa Biererhttp://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-501143.mp3Flagstaff, AZ – The movement to abolish the death penalty…