[Golotop]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/10/...ex.html?hpt=T2

Facing Utah's firing squad, killer supports death penalty

By Ashley Hayes, CNN
June 10, 2010 7:00 p.m. EDT

Ronnie Lee Gardner is scheduled to die by firing squad in Utah on June 18.

Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- Ronnie Lee Gardner, who is set to die next week before Utah's firing squad, said something Thursday he didn't plan to: He supports capital punishment.

But, Gardner told the five-member Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, he thinks the death penalty needs to be "as fair as you can get it."

Testifying at his commutation hearing, Gardner said he accepts responsibility for killing two men and seriously wounding a third. But, he added, executing him on June 18 would not be fair because he's never had the chance to present evidence in court that might have swayed jurors from a death sentence.

Gardner choked up as he said he hasn't been able to apologize to the families of his victims, saying they don't want to hear from him. He did not take that opportunity to apologize to the family members who were in the audience at the hearing.

"It makes me sad," he said, wiping his eyes. "I know killing me is going to hurt them just as bad," he said. "I've been on the other side of the gun. I know."

Now 49, Gardner is scheduled to be executed June 18 by firing squad for the murder of attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt at a Salt Lake City courthouse.

[markkisil]

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/06/08/...tion-since-96/

Utah Gearing Up For Its First Firing-Squad Execution Since ‘96

By Ashby Jones

Back in April, we blogged about Ronnie Gardner, a death row inmate in Utah.

As we wrote, Gardner (pictured) isn’t just any old death-row inmate. Gardner has asked to be executed by firing squad. Utah is only one of two remaining states that allow executions by firing squad (Oklahoma also allows them, albeit under limited circumstances).

The AP on Tuesday updated the situation, which hasn’t changed all that much since late April, when a state judge signed Gardner’s execution warrant. Barring a last-minute reprieve, Gardner will be strapped into a chair, hooded, brandished with a small white target, and shot to death on June 18.

Like most other states, Utah lawmakers made lethal injection the default method of execution in 2004, but inmates condemned before then can still choose the firing squad.

That’s what Gardner did in April, politely telling a judge, “I would like the firing squad, please.” Neither he nor his attorneys have said why.

What to make of this? Critics of the method aren’t too happy. “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.