SUNDAY ISSUE: Death by firing squad reactivates capital punishment debate

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June 20, 2010

By Lisa Byers Meadville Tribune The Meadville Tribune Sun Jun 20, 2010, 07:30 AM EDT

SAEGERTOWN — By Jennifer Dobner

Associated Press

DRAPER, Utah — A barrage of bullets tore into Ronnie Lee Gardner’s chest where a target had been pinned over his heart. Two minutes later, the twice-convicted killer was pronounced dead as blood pooled in his dark blue prison jumpsuit.

Friday was the first time in 14 years that an American inmate was executed by firing squad — a method Gardner chose over lethal injection. But death penalty opponents around the world reacted with horror all the same, renewing an international debate about capital punishment in the U.S.

Gardner was the third man to die by firing squad since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Gardner was sentenced to death in 1985 for fatally shooting an attorney during a failed escape attempt from a Salt Lake City courthouse.

At the time, he was facing a murder charge in the 1984 shooting death of a bartender named Melvyn Otterstrom. Gardner pulled out a gun that had been smuggled into the courthouse and shot lawyer Michael Burdell in the face as Burdell hid behind a door.

In April, a judge ordered the execution to proceed, and Gardner politely declared, “I would like the firing squad, please.”

He was allowed to choose the firing squad because he was sentenced to death before Utah eliminated it as an option. State officials scrapped it in 1984 after previous executions attracted unwanted publicity.

Of the 49 executions carried out in the state since the 1850s, 40 were by firing squad. Before Gardner’s execution, the most recent was John Albert Taylor, who was executed on Jan. 26, 1996, for raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl.

Historians say the firing squad persisted in Utah long after the rest of the nation abandoned it because of the 19th century doctrine of the state's predominant religion. Early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believed in the concept of “blood atonement” — that only through spilling one's own blood could a condemned person adequately atone for their crimes and be redeemed in the next life.

The church no longer promotes such teachings and offers no opinion on the use of the firing squad.

The European Union issued a statement Friday expressing its “profound regret” for the execution.

“The EU reiterates its universal opposition to the use of capital punishment and urges the immediate establishment of a global moratorium on its use with a view to abolition,” the statement said.

The American Civil Liberties Union decried Gardner’s execution as an example of the “barbaric, arbitrary and bankrupting practice of capital punishment.” Religious leaders called for an end to the death penalty at an interfaith vigil Thursday evening in Salt Lake City.

“Murdering the murderer doesn’t create justice or settle any score,” said the Rev. Tom Goldsmith of First Unitarian Church.

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SUNDAY ISSUE: Death by firing squad reactivates capital punishment debate

A clean-energy plan to use solar energy in eastern Pennsylvania has been met with resistance, even by environmental groups. Do you think solar energy has a future as a valuable energy source in Pennsylvania?

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