By Emiley Morgan
Deseret Morning News
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — As one of five of Utah’s 10 death row inmates who originally opted for death by firing squad, Ronnie Lee Gardner will choose how he will die when he goes before a district judge April 12. Though a law passed by the 2004 Utah Legislature eliminated death by firing squad, those who had requested such a death at the time of their sentencing, including Gardner, are still allowed the option.
Gardner, 49, was sentenced to die for shooting and killing attorney Michael Burdell and severely wounding Salt Lake County sheriff’s bailiff George “Nick” Kirk while trying to escape the former Salt Lake County courthouse in 1985. Gardner, who used a gun smuggled in by his girlfriend, was in court that day facing charges stemming from a 1984 robbery and shooting death of bartender Melvyn John Otterstrom.
A jury convicted Gardner of capital murder in the slaying of Burdell and sentenced him to die in 1985. Tom Brunker, head of the attorney general’s capital punishment appeal section, said the death warrant they’ve drafted for Gardner’s execution asks for lethal injection, because that was what Gardner had requested at his two previous execution hearings. But he said the attorney general’s office understands that Gardner may yet be considering death by firing squad.
“If (Gardner) elects (firing squad) — that should not slow things down,” Brunker said. “The judge should be able to write that in at the hearing.”
Gardner’s attorney, Andrew Parnes, said Thursday that Gardner continues to mull the decision.
“The initial judgment entered was firing squad, but there are two other warrants issued, and they were both lethal injection,” Parnes said. “It’s his decision, and he’ll make it in court.”
Gardner told a 3rd District judge at a hearing in 1990 that he preferred to die by lethal injection, but he told the Deseret News in 1996 that he would go so far as to sue for his right to die by firing squad.
“I’m going to fight it,” he said at the time. “I don’t know how yet, but I will.” He went on to say that he had asked for lethal injection in 1990 for the sake of his children, who he said “didn’t understand” the firing squad decision, but it was the option he always favored. “I guess it’s my Mormon heritage,” Gardner said in 1996. “I like the firing squad. It’s so much easier — and there’s no mistakes.”
Four other death row inmates will eventually have the option to die by firing squad or by lethal injection, as they were grandfathered into the 2004 law. These are Ron Lafferty, Taberon Dave Honie, Troy Kell and Ralph Menzies, all of whom have appeals pending.
Inmates Doug Lovell, Floyd Eugene Maestas, Douglas Stewart Carter, Von Lester Taylor and Michael Anthony Archuleta, if executed, will die by lethal injection, either because they didn’t ask to die by firing squad or weren’t grandfathered under the new law.
Gardner’s execution, if carried out, will be the first in Utah since Joseph Mitchell Parsons died by lethal injection in 1999. Utah has executed six men since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Copyright 2010 The Deseret News Publishing Co.