The state of Utah is scheduled to execute a convicted killer by firing squad on June 18, renewing a debate over what critics see as an antiquated, Old West-style justice.
State court Judge Robin Reese signed the warrant on Friday morning for Ronnie Lee Gardner, who killed a man during a failed escape 25 years ago.
Under state law, Gardner, 49, was given the choice of being killed by lethal injection or shot by a five-man team of executioners firing from a set of matched rifles, a rarely used relic that harkens back to the western state’s territorial history.
After Reese said Gardner’s avenues for appeal are exhausted and that he would sign the warrant, Gardner told the judge: “I would like the firing squad, please.”
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 US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
Two men have died in a hail of bullets since that decision: Gary Gilmore, on Jan. 17, 1977, — after famously uttering the last words, “Let’s do it” — and John Albert Taylor on Jan. 26, 1996.
Oklahoma is the only other state that considers a firing squad an acceptable option, but by law would only use it if lethal injection was deemed unconstitutional. The state has never used the method.
Utah’s death row inmates were for decades allowed to choose how they wanted to die. State lawmakers removed that choice in 2004 and made lethal injection the default method, though inmates sentenced before then still have a choice.
The repeal of the firing squad wasn’t tied to any discomfort with the method itself. Rather, state lawmakers disliked the heaps of negative media attention that firing squads focused on the state, said Republican state lawmaker Sheryl Allen, who twice carried legislation to change the law.
In 1996, more than 150 media outlets descended on Utah to cover Taylor’s execution, painting the firing squad as an Old West style of justice that allows killers to go out in a blaze of glory that embarrasses the state.
“I was just hoping to end that focus,” said Allen, adding that she’s displeased with the prospect of another firing squad execution. “I fear that the proper attention will not be paid to the victims of the crime and the atrocity of the crime.”
Still, lawmakers did not retroactively ban the firing squad out of fear that it would give condemned inmates a new avenue of appeal, she said.
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