Killer Executed

Quick.  Clean.  Humane.  Just. 

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.

[...]

The five executioners were police officers who volunteered for the task. They stood about 25 feet away, behind a wall cut with a gunport.

One of their .30-caliber Winchester rifles was loaded with a blank so no one would know who fired the fatal shots. Gardner was in a straight-backed metal chair, with sandbags stacked around it to keep the bullets from ricocheting around the cinderblock room at the Utah State Prison.

[...]

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.

1. While all those things may be true, I am still far from convinced that allowing the state to take lives as judicial punishment is a good idea. Outside of the religious and moral implications (which are HUGE), there is always the danger of executing an innocent person. There are always incidents of reversals in what seemed like iron clad cases. Overzealous police, investigators, district attorneys, judges, and juries can, and do, convict innocent people. At least if those people are alive, something can be done about it.

   I’m all for making prisons tougher, strengthening or eliminating parole, and offering strict sentencing. I’m far from being soft on crime. I just don’t agree that killing people amounts to a good idea. I don’t like it when it’s abortion, and I don’t care for it when it’s an execution done in my name as one of the “people”.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 19, 2010 at 0752 hrs




2. I’m for it - but only in these extreme cases. I agree that there is always that slight possibility that the wrong person could be executed. People end up in jail for 20+ years that are wrongly charged as well - so do we throw that out also?

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 19, 2010 at 0800 hrs




3. In some ways, the death penalty is too good as a punishment.  It removes years of sitting and rotting in prison to pay the price for a heinous crime.  It’s an easy way out; witness the recent example of Edward Edwards.

   OTOH, if one knows the consequence for the behavior, and acts on the behavior anyway, well…...

   Justice.

   Posted by GAMazy on June 19, 2010 at 0819 hrs




4. Clean? Perhaps if you were required to clean up the mess, you would switch your tune. I’m sure you are aware of how much blood the human body holds. Life in a 6X8 avoids this barbarity as well as the other pitfalls mentioned.

   Posted by jimspice on June 19, 2010 at 0931 hrs




5. So, Spiceboy…you are so forgiving that if your mother/sister/daughter were raped and murdered in the most heinous method possible, you would be willing to pay for a lifetime of incarceration?  Where the convicted get to live, eat, breathe, see their loved ones, have conjugal visits blah, blah, blah.  Really?

   It is said that the death penalty is just “societies vengeance”.  I’m good with that.  In spite of what the Left would have us believe, it is a deterrent.  No one who has been put to death has committed any further crime.

   @ASOL:  What religious and moral implications?  Further, there is zero comparison with abortion here.  An aborted child has done no wrong.

   Posted by Deeka on June 19, 2010 at 1257 hrs




6. First, why must you immediately opt for the emasculating nicknames. I didn’t attack you personally. Further, as far as I’m aware, we are not acquainted, so you have no idea whether that particular attempt at belittlement is simply childishly impish, or deeply offensive. And second, how do you know someone I love hasn’t been raped and/or murdered. God, the lack of civility of some people just really drives me nuts.

   Even though you don’t deserve the response, I will provide it any way.  I am not a candidate at the dais, so I don’t need to check response. If given the opportunity to get my hands on the monster who attacked a loved one, I would personally rip their face off. I would then immediately turn myself in and hope for jury nullification. I expect better of my government, however.

   Posted by jimspice on June 19, 2010 at 1444 hrs




7. If you are emasculated by that, that’s how it goes.  Didn’t know you were so thin-skinned.  I don’t know, but based on those I do know, it is the rare individual who doesn’t change their mind in that case.

   I expect government to protect me from murderers or allow me to protect myself.

   Posted by Deeka on June 19, 2010 at 1537 hrs




8. My reservations about capital punishment have nothing to do with religion or morality persay - it’s the finality, the irreversibility. But with something like this or similar cases with multiple separate murders, especially the latter in a courtroom full of people chances of false conviction are null.

   And even though I question the practice itself as it is generally done today, the EU can f___ right off.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 19, 2010 at 1621 hrs




9. I approve of the firing squad, but why in the world does it take 25 years to carry out a sentence? For those who claim the death penalty is not a deterrent, if it was applied more often and in a timely fashion (a year or 2 , not decades later), the thugs might get the message and the penalty would start deterring the crime. Without regard to the deterrent factor, the key reason I support the death penalty: no repeat offenders.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 19, 2010 at 1848 hrs




10. This was the ideal case for the death penalty, and I think that the firing squad is the ideal method.

    I hope that guy rots in hell.

    next topic.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on June 20, 2010 at 1349 hrs