Dead Man Walking: Utah execution by firing squad on June 18 (not at the Pie)

[TripletDaddy]

Convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner eschews lethal injection and decides to go down in a blaze of glory.

http://ww2.cox.com/myconnection/orangecounty/today/news/national/article.cox?articleId=D9F8V80O0&moduleType=apNews

This will bring a lot of negative pub down on Utah....not the execution, necessarily, but certainly the firing squad.

"I would like the firing squad, please," Gardner told State court Judge Robin Reese Friday morning, after Reese told him his avenues for appeal appear to be exhausted.
Gardner, 49, was sentenced to death for killing an attorney 25 years ago during a failed escape attempt and shootout.
Of the 35 states with the death penalty on the books, Utah is the only one to use the firing squad as a method of execution since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Amnesty International isn't keen on the whole thing, getting in a dig at Utah

Lydia Kalish, Amnesty International's death penalty abolition coordinator for Utah said her organization opposes the state's effort to see Gardner executed. But despite Utah's strong religious roots _ it's the home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints _ most here support the use of the death penalty.
"I think in Utah, when it suits their purposes, they go back to the Old Testament and the 'eye for an eye' kind of thing," Kalish said. "These people may be the worst of the worst, but if the best we can do is repeat the same thing, it's so obviously wrong."

[Indy Coug]

So Utah is cruel and usual for giving the condemned an option? Maybe they can offer the option given in Monty Python's Meaning of Life instead.

[il Padrino Ute]

He wants to be like Gary Gilmore. It's too bad that the state couldn't have accommodated him as quickly as they did Gilmore.

[RobinFinderson]

I'm glad that the state uses Firing Squad. The final result is the same, but death by firing squad doesn't try to distance society from the violence. Personally, I think the electric chair sounds way more gruesome than firing squad. I oppose all capital punishment, but if a people insist that this is something they want to do, don't sanitize it.

[RC Vikings]

So how does this work? Do they line up ten guys and they all get to shoot whatever part they want on him or do they get one guy that's a really good shot. I think in the future if you go with this option they should give you a thirty second head start before they can start shooting just to make it a little more sporting.

[RobinFinderson]

So how does this work? Do they line up ten guys and they all get to shoot whatever part they want on him or do they get one guy that's a really good shot. I think in the future if you go with this option they should give you a thirty second head start before they can start shooting just to make it a little more sporting.

I don't remember how many shooters there are, but several have guns with blanks, so no one knows for sure who actually shot the killing bullet. Everyone shoots for the heart.

[TripletDaddy]

So how does this work? Do they line up ten guys and they all get to shoot whatever part they want on him or do they get one guy that's a really good shot. I think in the future if you go with this option they should give you a thirty second head start before they can start shooting just to make it a little more sporting.

5 shots, 4 blanks, I think. Only one bullet kills him, but none of the shooters know who has the blank in the rifle. dont know what happens if he doesnt die immediately. maybe they pump him with more bullets?

[beelzebabette]

So how does this work? Do they line up ten guys and they all get to shoot whatever part they want on him or do they get one guy that's a really good shot. I think in the future if you go with this option they should give you a thirty second head start before they can start shooting just to make it a little more sporting.

Five guys, four bullets/one blank. Target placed on the chest.

Blank used for firing squad member's deniability I'm told. I had a neighbor that was on a few of these. He said the kick is different, and each person always knew which he had though they never discussed it.

[creekster]

So how does this work? Do they line up ten guys and they all get to shoot whatever part they want on him or do they get one guy that's a really good shot. I think in the future if you go with this option they should give you a thirty second head start before they can start shooting just to make it a little more sporting.

I think it is 9 guys. They volunteer for the duty and one of the rifles is loaded with a blank. The shooters stand behind a wall with a slot for sighting and their barrels. The condemned is hooded, dressed in black with a target pinned to his chest. He is placed in a chair and restrained (so he cant try to run away or slump over at the shoot command). The command is given and death is realtively fast. I think it is more certain than an electric chair and faster than a gas chamber but it might be alittle painful, albeit very briefly.

This is the procedure that was followed in Utah in the late 80s.

[creekster]

5 shots, 4 blanks, I think. Only one bullet kills him, but none of the shooters know who has the blank in the rifle. dont know what happens if he doesnt die immediately. maybe they pump him with more bullets?

no, BBB is correct, only one blank. And the kick is different. They always know.

I could easily be wrong about the number of guys, but I thought it was more than 5.

[Goatnapper'96]

Convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner eschews lethal injection and decides to go down in a blaze of glory.

http://ww2.cox.com/myconnection/orangecounty/today/news/national/article.cox?articleId=D9F8V80O0&moduleType=apNews

This will bring a lot of negative pub down on Utah....not the execution, necessarily, but certainly the firing squad.



Amnesty International isn't keen on the whole thing, getting in a dig at Utah

In the late 90's there was a fellow named John Taylor who had molested and murdered a number of young boys. He chose firing squad in a hope to embarass the state into using a more humane form of the death penalty. The Utah Department of Corrections was overrun by good ol Utah rednecks mailing letters in which these God fearin' Red Blooded American Patriots offered their expert marksmanship services and the state could have free use of their personal firearms and donated ammunition to aid Brother Taylor in his pursuit of the eternal world. It was then I knew these people were my kind of folk!

If I could quote the great American philosopher Al Bundy: "My friends you just couldn't buy culture like that in Japan!"

[scottie]

I wonder why they don't go with some type of robot firing squad, avoiding the shooter-not-wanting-to-know-if-his-gun-had-the-real-bullet issue. Have 5 robots lined up and a program that randomly picks which robot does the shooting (or have a single robot, but the random program helps the robot programmer with the guilt issue).

[creekster]

I wonder why they don't go with some type of robot firing squad, avoiding the shooter-not-wanting-to-know-if-his-gun-had-the-real-bullet issue. Have 5 robots lined up and a program that randomly picks which robot does the shooting (or have a single robot, but the random program helps the robot programmer with the guilt issue).

WHy not a guillotine? faster, less painful and you could program a release by a machine.

[falafel]

I wonder why they don't go with some type of robot firing squad, avoiding the shooter-not-wanting-to-know-if-his-gun-had-the-real-bullet issue. Have 5 robots lined up and a program that randomly picks which robot does the shooting (or have a single robot, but the random program helps the robot programmer with the guilt issue).

Is the issue that the shooter doesn't want to know if he killed them? Why would he sign up as an executioner if he was worried that he might actually have to kill someone? That seems ridiculous.

I would think that the blank would be to discourage retribution against one of the executioners. That way you could never know if you were going after the actual shooter or not. Truthishly, that sounds fairly far-fetched to me, but not nearly as far-fetched as trying to save the executioner from having to do his job.

[old_gregg]

i'd be thrilled to know i put this guy down. screw blanks, give them all live rounds. but make them shoot .22lr so it takes this guy a long time to die.