Ronnie Lee Gardner will be strapped into a chair, a hood will be placed over his head and a small white target will be pinned over his heart.
The order will come: "Ready, aim..." The 49-year-old convicted killer will be executed by a team of five anonymous marksmen firing with a matched set of .30-caliber rifles. He is to be the third person executed by firing squad in Utah - or anywhere else in the U.S. - since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Violence begets violence, as some have noted: [More...]
"The firing squad is archaic, it's violent, and it simply expands on the violence that we already experience from guns as a society," Bishop John C. Wester, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, said during an April protest. The diocese is part of a new coalition pushing for alternatives to capital punishment in Utah.
Gardner's execution method is expected to raise opposition to the death penalty. According to John Holdridge, director of the Capital Punishment Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
“The Gardner execution really brings to the spotlight what we are doing – exterminating a human life in a deliberate, premeditated fashion.”
The Tenth Circuit and Utah's Governor today denied stays. A final petition is pending before the Supreme Court.
As to Gardner's history:
Gardner first came to the attention of authorities at age 2 as he was found walking alone on a street clad only in a diaper. At age 6 he became addicted to sniffing gasoline and glue. Harder drugs — LSD and heroin — followed by age 10. By then, Gardner was tagging along with his stepfather as a lookout on robberies, according to court documents.
After spending 18 months in a state mental hospital and being sexually abused in a foster home, he killed Otterstrom at age 23. About six months later, at 24, he shot Burdell in the face as the attorney hid behind a door in the courthouse.
Gardner says he has changed. If granted a reprieve, he would like start a 160-acre organic farm and program for at-risk youth. He's unlikely to get the chance.
More reactions to his planned execution:
The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday decried Gardner's imminent execution as an example of what it called the United States' "barbaric, arbitrary and bankrupting practice of capital punishment."
At an interfaith vigil in Salt Lake City on Thursday evening, religious leaders called for an end to the death penalty.
"Murdering the murderer doesn't create justice or settle any score," said Rev. Tom Goldsmith of the First Unitarian Church.
Memo to commenters: Don't bother re-posting the facts of his crimes here, take them to another site that supports the death penalty. I have mentioned them above, they were 25 years ago and he has not denied committing them.
Update: Ronnie Gardner was to touch his daughter and brother through bars to say goodbye. His daughter said it was the first time in 27 years she had been able to touch him.
Vietnam this week banned execution by firing squad. Lethal injection will be used instead because it is considered more humane. Vietnam executes about 100 people a year, mostly for drug offenses. A report by a committee of the Assembly found:
"Injection of poison to people being executed causes less pain and their bodies stay intact. It costs less and reduces psychological pressure on executors," it said.
