State-sanctioned murder , sometimes known quaintly as 'capital punishment', is the order of the day down in Utah.
When offered a choice of means of death, Ronnie Lee Gardner chose a firing squad over a lethal injection. (I would too, knowing the additional and unnecessary torture these injections inflict on victims at the incompetent hands of the bungling executioners). At least with 5 rifles going off at the same time, death should be instantaneous.
He has been on death row since 1985.
Michael J. Burdell's (Gardner's victim) father and girlfriend insist that Michael, a lawyer and pacifist who never held a gun, wouldn't want this outcome and if he had survived the shooting, he would have defended Gardner.
Savage and barbaric doesn't quite cover my revulsion.
