Utah's Firing Squad to Execute Ronnie Lee Gardner Tonight

Ronnie Lee Gardner, a 49-year-old convicted killer, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad in Utah shortly after midnight tonight. The execution method is rare and considered barbaric by some, but Gardner chose the firing squad over lethal injection when asked by a judge in April which he preferred. Though firing squads have now been outlawed in Utah, the law was not retroactive, allowing Gardner to choose it for his own death.

The last person to be executed by firing squad in the United States was John Albert Taylor, who was shot to death in Utah in 1996. Taylor was convicted of raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl in 1989. Ironically, he reportedly chose the firing squad to make a statement about Utah sanctioning murder.

Before Taylor, no one had been shot by firing squad since Gary Gilmore who was put to death in 1977, also in Utah. Gilmore, who had been convicted of murdering two men after robbing them separately, was the first criminal to be executed in the U.S. following a moratorium on the death penalty put in place in 1972. In 1979, Norman Mailer published a book about Gilmore, "The Executioner's Song," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980.

Tonight, if the courts don't stay the execution, Gardner will be strapped to a chair in the execution chamber, a black hood will be put over his head, and a circular target will be pinned over his heart. A five-man firing squad, drawn from anonymous volunteers from state law enforcement, will be stationed behind a brick wall, armed with .30 caliber rifles. One of the rifles will be loaded with blanks, so that none of the shooters will know if they shot one of the deadly shells. After Gardner speaks his final words, the firing squad will do its job.