Utah Attorney General tweets execution go-ahead Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff last night used Twitter to announce the impending execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner. Shurtleff declared from his iPhone* ealier yesterday: "A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice" He later …
Utah no longer allows firing squad as a method of capital punishment. However, he had chosen that method of execution before it was removed as an option, and so was grandfathered in.
I'm not necessarily saying that a less gruesome method of execution makes everything OK - but just thought it's a noteworthy point in the affair.
I never understand why anyone would allow someone like Shurtleff to represent them at any level. There's always going to be a serious conflict of interest between state business and religious doctrine.
Not that Shurtleff seems to particularly care about religious doctrine - Exodus 20:13.
I wonder if 'old age' was on the list of choices. Probably not, but given that he had been in prison since 1985, perhaps it should have been. Quite odd the whole death row thing - he had 25 years to reflect on his crimes, perhaps become rehabilitated, then they kill him. I suppose it kills two birds with one stone (sorry), i.e. makes it difficult to argue that didn't get chance to appeal and it also removes the 'easy way out' argument.
Five guys firing from 25ft away at a white target somebody stuck at his chest. Why couldn't just one guy shoot him point-blank in the head?
Would also have saved 4 commemorative coins...
But having said this - even this five to one method seems much more humane to me than the slow poisoning and piercing with needles which is the standard execution method in the States today. Are they saving bullets?
they use 5 people to make absolutely sure he dies quickly. only 4 bullets, though. one officer has a blank loaded in his gun, but none of them know which has the blank - so they can all "assume" it was them if they have a problem with guilt (which is also why you don't make someone walk up to him and shoot him in the head).
But surely, it's the judge who kills the guy - he is the one to deal with the guilt because he knows he is not firing blanks when he delivers the sentence.
In Soviet Union when a death row inmate was informed that his final appeal failed he would be escorted down some corridors and will get a bullet in the back of his head at some random spot without warning. That's what I call a "humane killing"!
That 5-people affair is IMHO a misplaced sensitivity which achieves nothing. Yes, it originates from time when during wars firing squads were formed from regular soldiers and they were ordered to shoot, perhaps one of their own comrades who was hastily convicted of cowardice or being a spy etc. so the guilt issue was there. But civilian executions?
For centuries it used to be just one guy doing the job with his faced masked.
P.S. I am actually against death penalty as a principle, but if you decide to do it - do it properly, that's what I think.
<so each officer doesn't know if he's fired a real bullet or not.>
If the're trained, and shoot/practice a lot, the gun's recoil would give the marksman a clue, if he fired wax, rather than lead.
Oh, and "the state of their mental health" confuses me. Why, unless they were a bit 'odd', would anyone volunteer for the job?
(Dunno why Moderator didn't accept my last post, but - oddly - seems every full moon I get turfed out.)
I thought the article was a well written piece, sensitively dealing with a solemn story which had an IT angle.
Then you just *had* to go and add that bootnote.
I'm not new here, and I'm well aware of the style of writing on El Reg, but I think you stepped over the line of taste here.
While it's already somewhat hard to understand that somebody in difficult circumstances desires to kill another human, it's really, really hard to follow some supposedly "exalted" person who commands an unneeded killing of any other human... And aren't people who are wishing for years for the death of another person even more entitled to be defined as "evil"?
Utah is about as pro law enforcement pro gun area to be found in the first world. I am sure those who did the execution will feel about as guilty as the pilot of the Enola Gay did about dropping the first nuke (contrary to urban myth he not only didn't feel guilty but felt a bit of pride of ending the war). For the record also the greatest gun smith inventor in history John Browning (think Browning machine gun) was also mormon.
Sat on a chair, hooded, wearing a target. Yes, that's dignity for you.
Execution. Yes, that's reverence for human life.
The guy might have been a real scumbag (can't be bothered to Google, but given a death penalty it's probably pretty obvious...), that isn't what I am against. I'm against the prick, that having just gone through the process of executing a person by firing squad AND having a fancy little coin issued to commemorate the occasion, trots out a line such as that quoted in the title. Just STFU and say something practical like, "it's done".
The lawyers have argued that a case of meningitis at the age of four may have caused Gardner considerable brain damage, debilitating his capacity for empathy and impulse control. He was also sexually abused, used drugs between the ages of six and 11 and had a troubled childhood, with two parents who were both alcoholics and physically abusive.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/culture/jurors-in-death-row-case-speak-out-as-defendant-faces-firing-squad/1501/
Wasn't the reason for the "Winchester house"* because the widow of the inventor of the Winchester rifle believed that by building the house constantly, adding rooms, chandeiers, etc. she could somehow atone for the deaths of those who had been killed by her late husband's invention - the Winchester Rifle?. Think it predates Browning.
Corrections welcome.
*http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/thehouse.cfm
(Definitely worth a visit. Spooky, at the minimum)
Although I'm totally against the death penalty, I sincerely found the following quite moving:
"Utah Department of Corrections director Thomas Patterson said: "This is an unusual task but one we have done professionally. It has been done with absolute dignity and reverence for human life.
"It's been a balancing act of being sensitive to the families who lost loved ones and the family who lost a loved one tonight."
Hats - or black caps - off to Mr. Patterson. Fair statement.
4 bullets and 1 blank. So all the shooters can go away knowing that probably their bullet *did* kill him (unless they're a useless marksman). Chance of the marksman being the one that killed him? 4 out of 5.
Ok, the marksman can walk away with some doubt as to whether he killed him, but would't it have been even better to load simply one live round and 4 blanks?
The guy still gets killed (unless the marksman's useless), but the probability of any individual marksman being the killer is reduced from 4/5 to 1/5, that is from being almost certain he was the killer to almost certain he wasn't.
Surely this is going to be better for the mental state of the marksman?
Or why not set up a gun using a stand, fixed aim, and automatically fired by a computer using a random time.
He was a mission for the Church of the Latter Day Saints - you know the ones - the ones that collar you in the town's shopping centre, dressed very smartly and talk for an hour and won't let you go, then try to get you to go along to one of their meetings.
Gonna be very hard with such strong religious beliefs to keep that out of politics and not influence his judgements...gonna be very hard.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
