Poll: Should Utah Execute Convicted Killer Ronnie Lee Gardner by Firing Squad?

By: Edecio Martinez
Topics: Daily Blotter

Ronnie Lee Gardner (Mug Shot)

NEW YORK (CBS) A Utah judge has signed an order for a form of execution rarely-used in the United States.

Ronnie Lee Gardner has been on Utah's death row for 25 years. Now, his appeals exhausted, he was asked which form of capital punishment he wants.

"I would like the firing squad, please," Gardner said Friday morning in a Salt Lake City courtroom.

Gardner would be the state's first death row inmate executed since Joseph Mitchell Parsons died by lethal injection in 1999.

Gardner was sentenced to death in 1985 for the Salt Lake City courthouse slaying of attorney Michael Burdell during a failed escape attempt.

What do you think about this unusual form of execution?

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by sunday42 April 26, 2010 9:25 AM EDT

Give the guy a break, after all it was a lawyer. Really the question here should be, why has it taken 25 years to execute him?

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by pak31 April 26, 2010 10:01 AM EDT: I totally agree. I am not a huge fan of executions but this guy was supposed to die and it's been 25 years since then, that is wrong.


by book_of_wally April 26, 2010 9:06 AM EDT: o let's kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas
Let's hang him from atop the Christmas tree
Let's give to him the only gift that money can't buy
Put poison in his egg nog, let him drink it, watch him die

Let's throw another yule log on the fire
And then let's throw Gary Gilmore on there too
With a ribbon so gay and a card that will say
"Dear Gary, Merry Christmas to you"

In the meadow, we can build a snowman
One with Gary Gilmore packed inside
We'll say "Are you dead yet?" He'll say "No, man"
But we'll wait out the frostbite till he dies

I've one Christmas wish
Just ask it
Please put Gary in a casket
So let's toll the silver bells for him
While he can still hear what they say
Ding dong ding dong
You're dead, so long
We can thrill Gary Gilmore
If we kill Gary Gilmore
On this Christmas Day; Reply to this comment


by Harden_Tar April 26, 2010 8:11 AM EDT: Ready, Aim......; Reply to this comment


by govtguy April 26, 2010 8:05 AM EDT: Enough already. Since when does the criminal get a say in the matter; he surely didn't allow his victims any decisions. No firing
squad for this bum; hang him slowly from a public bridge over the
interstate for all to see.; Reply to this comment


by judyyw April 26, 2010 6:57 AM EDT: MAYBE IF OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM WOULD TAKE A STAND ON CRIME LIKE OUR COUNTRY WAS WAS BASED ON, THEN MAYBE CRIMINALS WOULD THINK TWICE BEFORE GOING OUT & COMMITING A CRIME. INSTEAD OF JUST BEING PUT IN JAIL FOR YEAR AFTER YEAR & OUR TAX DOLLAR HAVING TO TAKE CARE OF THEM, FEED THEM, EDUCATE THEM, & THE LIST GOES ON & ON. IT'S TIME AMERICAN'S SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH & MEAN IT.; Reply to this comment


by MNBantisbanned April 26, 2010 1:40 AM EDT: I am protesting the death penalty. It's alot like a traffic ticket in that it's very subjective. I remember taking a wrong left turn and the cop let the lady ahead of me drive off and nailed me for making a left turn at the wrong time. Everybody knows that it takes a good lawyer to keep you out of jail for a DWI hence you got people going to jail for their first offense and some people getting as many as 5 before looking at jail. Justice is not blind in this country.; Reply to this comment


by justsane-2009 April 25, 2010 11:11 PM EDT: i'm a little disturbed that there's a poll about this...; Reply to this comment


by MilitaryRetiree April 25, 2010 8:52 PM EDT: Whatever it takes to get the job done. We had one inmate here on Florida's Death Row who literally tried to "eat his way out of the electric chair". He tried to get so fat that he couldn't fit into the chair, but we got him to fit anyway. But weighing so much, his BP was through the roof and the first jolt of electricity caused him to bleed from his nose. All the bleeding hearts claimed that it was a "cruel and unusual" punishment. Johnson had murdered a mother and her daughters (one of them on her 9th birthday), and raped them all. His was a deserved punishment.; Reply to this comment


by irishreb2u April 25, 2010 8:29 PM EDT: They should only allow him to be executed if they do it on live tv at primetime !; Reply to this comment