Ronnie Lee Gardner, sentenced to death in the State of Utah, was given the choice of being killed by lethal injection or shot by a five man team of executioners. "I would like the firing squad, please," Gardner told state court Judge Robin Reese after hearing his avenues for appeal appear to be exhausted. Reese agreed Friday to Gardner's request.
His execution will take place just after midnight on June 18 in a chamber built in 1998, according to corrections officials. Prosecutors, law enforcement and news media will witness his death.
"The inmate can actually request that a certain number of people be there. From his family, for example," Steve Gehrke, a spokesman for the department, told Fox 13 in Utah. "We give certain rights to his attorney, and to his religious representatives to make sure that they can be there through the process for him."
Five corrections officers selected by the department to be executioners will be positioned behind a brick wall with a portal cut out.
"Five guns, four of them are loaded, one has blanks," Gehrke told Fox 13. "And the call is made. When the whole process is ready, there is a hood placed over the condemned's head."
A patch with a target will be pinned to Gardner's chest, and he will be given the chance to say his last words, as well as request a last meal prepared at the prison.
Gardner, 49, was sentenced to death for killing an attorney 25 years ago during a failed escape attempt and shootout.
Defense attorney Andrew Parnes said he plans to quickly seek a stay of execution and appeal Reese's ruling to the Utah Supreme Court. This is the fourth time a judge has signed a warrant for Gardner's execution. Parnes said it seems his client's death may be "closer than ever before...I don't think it was a shock or a surprise, and he's coming to grips with that," Parnes said without explaining Gardner's choice of firing squad.
About 20 anti-death penalty protesters demonstrated in the courthouse rotunda before the hearing.
"The firing squad is archaic, it's violent, and it simply expands on the violence that we already experience from guns as a society," said Bishop John C. Wester, of Utah's Catholic Diocese.
I (as you might predict), feel that the firing squad brings a certain finality to the situation and will put an appropriate end to Gardner. Utah's decision to keep the firing squad as an option appeals to me because it sends the convicted out in the same way as they sent an innocent person they murdered out.
7 comments:
i believe the 'firing squad' gives a certain sense of dignity to the convicted. I am not against the death penalty, but to say it sends him out in the same way is a strech. Did the lawyer who was murdered choose to be so, let alone by a bullet? I think not.
I prefer a good 'ole public hanging myself and make the viewing manadory for schools.
Also, no convict on death row should be afforded the choice of which means he/she will die. it should be determined by luck of the draw be it electicution, leathal injection, firing squad or by the noose.
He committed this crime 25 years ago? What took so long? Just saying. This is another thing that needs addressing.
I like the firing squad idea though. An eye for an eye so to speak.
Have a terrific day. :)
Public hanging USED to be an option in Utah. They changed that option to lethal injection about twenty years ago but kept the firing squad option on the books. Just an indication of how our modern world is bringing "justice".
Sandee - Old Sparky (Florida's electric chair) seems to have excited the imagination of the media in the same way as Utah's firing squad. Both work. 25 years is about 24 years too long to wait.
I'm not sure why people care about how he goes, as long as he goes. Many, many years beyond when it should have happened.
Hand me a gun. Don't cover his face. I wouldn't need a target on his chest.
I went to church with a girl who was one of the college students murdered in Gainsville. Her name was Sonya Larson. She was murdered in 1990 and had to be identified by her freakin' dental records because he didn't just murder her, he butchered her enitire body.
"The town's terror began on Aug. 26, 1990, when Christina Powell and Sonya Larson were found dead, naked, repeatedly stabbed, mutilated and positioned to shock whoever walked though the door."
It took 16 years, 15 years too long, for this bastard to finally get the death penalty.
When I read that justice was finally being carried out, I sat in my office in front of my computer and cried like I did the day I heard her name announced on the radio on my way to class that morning.
I walked into my college class late and all red eyed. I was completely out of it. My professor asked what was wrong. I simply said that it was just announced that my friend was murdered in Gainsville.
Class stopped.
So I have no pity or concern for the "rights" of murderers.
Too quick, way too quick.
Post a Comment