Ronnie Lee Gardner, condemned to death in Utah since 1985, has requested that his execution be delivered by firing squad. A state judge signed his death warrant on Friday, and ordered the firing to commence in June. The last Utah prisoner to be executed in such a fashion was the rapist and murderer John Albert Taylor, who in 1996 was hooded and bound in a chair when lawmen began to fire at the cloth target taped over his heart. Ronnie Lee Gardner has been approaching a similiar fate since 1985, when after attempting to escape from a Salt Lake City courthouse he shot an attorney in the head. (Gardner's woman-friend met him there and she slipped him the gun he fired.) The five-person squad whose task it will be to fatally wound Gardner on June 18 will be selected by the state's Correctional Department, along with one alternate and one 'team leader.' They will all be anonymous and certified peace officers.
Read the entire report and case history in The Salt Lake Tribune.
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