Utah prisoner Ronnie Lee Gardner chooses firing squad over lethal injection

Allowing a prisoner to 'choose' the method of his own execution is a rather twisted application of human rights.

Yet that’s the choice Ronnie Lee Gardner has recently grappled with. On Friday, having initially opted for lethal injection, Ronnie sent a simple request to the judge in Salt Lake City: "I would like the firing squad, please."

Since the US Supreme Court temporarily suspended capital punishment in the 1970s, the only other execution by firing squad was that of John Taylor in 1996 – also in Utah. According to the New York Times, Taylor chose this method of execution ‘to make a statement that Utah was sanctioning murder’.

When the media descended to cover Taylor going down in a ‘blaze of glory’, Utah was suddenly embarrassed by suggestions that its justice system was a relic of the Wild West. The state went on to ban death by firing squad in 2004. However, as the law is not retroactive, prisoners sentenced to death before 2004 can still choose between firing squad and the lethal injection. The only other state that still permits execution by firing squad is Oklahoma, where it is offered as a ‘backup method’, but has never been used in practice.

Ronnie, 49, was convicted of killing lawyer Michael Burdell in a shootout while trying to escape from a courthouse in 1985. Ron Temu, a close friend of Burdell, claims that he would have opposed Ronnie’s execution: “Michael would not be happy at all. Michael would have fought against the death penalty. That’s who he was.” A pacifist drafted to serve in Vietnam, Burdell vowed never to use a weapon on another person after he returned to the US. He spent the rest of his life assisting those who couldn’t afford legal representation.

The death warrant signed by the judge last Friday allows the state to execute Ronnie using a five-man firing squad, made up of police volunteers. His execution date is set for 18 June.

It might be surprising to hear that Ronnie has opted for firing squad over lethal injection – that is, until you learn just how protracted and painful death by lethal injection can be.

In September 2009, executioners spent 2 hours trying to put Ohio prisoner Romell Broom to death; struggling to find a vein, they jabbed the needle into Broom’s arms, legs, hands and ankle bone while he screamed in pain. Broom even tried to assist by pointing out places to inject the needle and tying his own arm. His execution was eventually suspended, and he remains on death row.

But even administering the injection successfully doesn’t make for a painless death. Most states currently use a 3-drug cocktail: sodium thiopental, an anaesthetic, pancuronium bromide, which paralyses the muscles without affecting the nerves or brain, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. This last drug would normally cause excruciating pain if it weren’t for the anaesthetic. The problem is that the anaesthetic is a short-acting drug which can wear off before death. If this happens, the individual injected would be in agony, but unable to express their pain because of the paralysing effect of the pancuronium bromide.

So – which one would you choose, firing squad or lethal injection? This is a choice that none of us should ever have to make.