Ronnie Lee Gardner, death by firing squad

Three minutes past midnight on June 18, Ronnie Lee Gardner was declared dead by a doctor. He was executed by a firing squad for a crime committed 25 years ago. His execution was ‘tweeted’ by the Utah Attorney General who gave the final go ahead.

The juxtaposition of these facts is jarring in today’s world. The choice between firing squad and lethal injection is no longer available -- a sign of how societies change and "evolve".  Firing squad has been outlawed as a method of execution in all states except Utah (for cases pre-2004) and Okalahoma (if lethal injection and electric chair are both deemed unconstitutional); its use is now archaic if not horrific. Yet the announcement of Ronnie's death was made using an iPhone accessing the social networking site, Twitter.

The United States' death penalty itself is a contradiciton. In a society with foundations based on democracy, freedom and the ‘pursuit of happiness’, does it make sense for that same society to also believe in guns and violence as positive instruments for justice?  Of course, it is only positive so long as you are on the right side of the law when you use them.

Gardner’s life was beset with violence and abuse. Addicted to sniffing gasoline and glue at 6 and being the lookout while his grandfather committed roberies by the age of 10, he is quoted as saying it would have been a ‘miracle’ had he not ended up on death row.  Backgrounds of poverty and childhood trauma is common to many who reside on death row, predominantly because a life of incarceration and violence tends to leave defendants with few financial resources. And one of the main recognisable factors of those on death row in USA, is that they are all poor – and they get their money’s worth when it comes to lawyers.

Linda Carty, a British grandmother on death row in Texas, recently had her appeal at the US Supreme Court rejected after arguing that her lawyer is the worst in America. Jerry Guerinot spent less than an hour with his client before entering the courtroom to fight for her life. The prosecution’s unlikely case theory was never questioned, and has been accepted as truth ever since, despite the fact that the claims they made were easily disputable.

Where Gardner was failed repeatedly by the system during his childhood, who simply moved him around from abusive homes to mental institute to prison to death row, Linda has been failed by a system that has refused to hear her case for innocence.

There is now a real danger that Linda, like Ronnie Lee Gardner, will have her execution carried out by a system that has proved faulty and will fail many more after her.  Please help save Linda today.