Man Forces State To Kill Him Messiest Way Possible
‘The Firing Squad, Please,’ Says Prisoner
"Ronnie Lee Gardner had a quarter-century to ponder his choice, whether to die by lethal injection or take four bullets in the heart.
In a Utah courtroom Friday, 25 years after he was sentenced to death for killing a man during an escape attempt, he declared his preference to the judge: “I would like the firing squad, please.”
With Mr. Gardner’s appeals apparently exhausted, Judge Robin W. Reese of Third District Court in Salt Lake City signed a warrant of execution and scheduled it for June 18."
"For decades, Utah let condemned prisoners choose whether to die by hanging or the firing squad, then more recently between lethal injection and a firing squad. In 2004, the Legislature ended the practice, making lethal injections standard. But to avoid legal complications, the state has allowed pre-existing prisoners who had selected the firing squad to remain with that option if they want.
Mr. Gardner picked the firing squad at the time of his initial death sentence in 1985. In two later court appearances he seemed to have had a change of heart, switching his choice to lethal injection. But in 1996 — the same year that the last prisoner in Utah, and the country, was executed with bullets — he said he had switched only out of concern for his children, who were then young, and that he had always preferred death by gunfire.
“I like the firing squad,” he told The Deseret News at the time. “It’s so much easier ... and there’s no mistakes.” In a telephone interview Friday, Mr. Parnes said that he would not comment on Mr. Gardner’s reasons for “his personal decision.”
By law, state law enforcement officers would be the ones to fire the shots, but officials have not publicly described how they would be selected. Earlier this month, as Mr. Gardner was considering his decision, officials allowed Mr. Parnes to brief him on the protocols for lethal injection and for the firing squad. Mr. Parnes said that the court had ordered him not to reveal the details.
Procedures for the last two such executions in Utah, which officials said would largely be followed with Mr. Gardner, had five unidentified officers using identical .30-30 hunting rifles from a distance of about 20 feet. One rifle — which one unknown to the shooters — was loaded with a blank. The condemned man was strapped into a seat while wearing a black jumpsuit and a hood, with a white cloth circle placed over his heart to provide a target.
Lethal injection has become the method of choice throughout the country, used in more than 1,000 executions since it was introduced in the early 1980s. It is widely seen as more humane than the alternatives, but numerous cases have been reported in which drugs have been injected incorrectly, causing severe pain and gasping for minutes or more.
Four other men now sitting on Utah’s death row were also sentenced before 1996 and initially selected the firing squad, so Mr. Gardner’s shooting death would not necessarily be the last. Utah is the only state where such an execution is at all likely; only Oklahoma keeps it as a backup in case other methods are legally rejected.
Utah is phasing out firing squads because of the media attention and bad image they cause, legislators and corrections officials said."
What a sick, backwards society we live in that this archaic shit still goes on. Forget all the supposed reasons for opposing death penalties. Discard the expense involved, the cruel wait, the possibilities that an innocent person would die and other miscarriages of justice. The one main reason for not having death penalties is that you never, ever give the government the ability to kill citizens, because kill them they will, in greater numbers and for ever more petty crimes.
The reason executions are carried out by poisonous injection isn't for humane purposes, the victim winds up dead like any other method and can likely be chemically tortured beforehand. No, lethal injections are favored because it's gruesomely clean and quiet and politically correct and won't spook the herd.
"Ronnie Lee Gardner had a quarter-century to ponder his choice, whether to die by lethal injection or take four bullets in the heart.
In a Utah courtroom Friday, 25 years after he was sentenced to death for killing a man during an escape attempt, he declared his preference to the judge: “I would like the firing squad, please.”
With Mr. Gardner’s appeals apparently exhausted, Judge Robin W. Reese of Third District Court in Salt Lake City signed a warrant of execution and scheduled it for June 18."
"For decades, Utah let condemned prisoners choose whether to die by hanging or the firing squad, then more recently between lethal injection and a firing squad. In 2004, the Legislature ended the practice, making lethal injections standard. But to avoid legal complications, the state has allowed pre-existing prisoners who had selected the firing squad to remain with that option if they want.
Mr. Gardner picked the firing squad at the time of his initial death sentence in 1985. In two later court appearances he seemed to have had a change of heart, switching his choice to lethal injection. But in 1996 — the same year that the last prisoner in Utah, and the country, was executed with bullets — he said he had switched only out of concern for his children, who were then young, and that he had always preferred death by gunfire.
“I like the firing squad,” he told The Deseret News at the time. “It’s so much easier ... and there’s no mistakes.” In a telephone interview Friday, Mr. Parnes said that he would not comment on Mr. Gardner’s reasons for “his personal decision.”
By law, state law enforcement officers would be the ones to fire the shots, but officials have not publicly described how they would be selected. Earlier this month, as Mr. Gardner was considering his decision, officials allowed Mr. Parnes to brief him on the protocols for lethal injection and for the firing squad. Mr. Parnes said that the court had ordered him not to reveal the details.
Procedures for the last two such executions in Utah, which officials said would largely be followed with Mr. Gardner, had five unidentified officers using identical .30-30 hunting rifles from a distance of about 20 feet. One rifle — which one unknown to the shooters — was loaded with a blank. The condemned man was strapped into a seat while wearing a black jumpsuit and a hood, with a white cloth circle placed over his heart to provide a target.
Lethal injection has become the method of choice throughout the country, used in more than 1,000 executions since it was introduced in the early 1980s. It is widely seen as more humane than the alternatives, but numerous cases have been reported in which drugs have been injected incorrectly, causing severe pain and gasping for minutes or more.
Four other men now sitting on Utah’s death row were also sentenced before 1996 and initially selected the firing squad, so Mr. Gardner’s shooting death would not necessarily be the last. Utah is the only state where such an execution is at all likely; only Oklahoma keeps it as a backup in case other methods are legally rejected.
Utah is phasing out firing squads because of the media attention and bad image they cause, legislators and corrections officials said."
What a sick, backwards society we live in that this archaic shit still goes on. Forget all the supposed reasons for opposing death penalties. Discard the expense involved, the cruel wait, the possibilities that an innocent person would die and other miscarriages of justice. The one main reason for not having death penalties is that you never, ever give the government the ability to kill citizens, because kill them they will, in greater numbers and for ever more petty crimes.
The reason executions are carried out by poisonous injection isn't for humane purposes, the victim winds up dead like any other method and can likely be chemically tortured beforehand. No, lethal injections are favored because it's gruesomely clean and quiet and politically correct and won't spook the herd.
posted by nolocontendere at 5:40 AM
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