At inmate's request, Utah prepares firing squad [View All]

Source: AP

SALT LAKE CITY – Barring a last-minute reprieve, Ronnie Lee Gardner will be strapped into a chair, a hood will be placed over his head and a small white target will be pinned over his heart.

The order will come: "Ready, aim..."

The 49-year-old convicted killer will be executed by a team of five anonymous marksmen firing with a matched set of .30-caliber rifles. He is to be the third person executed by firing squad in Utah — or anywhere else in the U.S. — since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Utah was a long holdout in keeping the method, which it has used in 40 of its 49 executions in the last 160 years. Utah lawmakers made lethal injection the default method of execution in 2004, but inmates condemned before then can still choose the firing squad.

That's what Gardner did in April, politely telling a judge, "I would like the firing squad, please." Neither he nor his attorneys have said why.

Critics decry the firing squad as a barbaric method that should have been relegated to the dustbin of the frontier era

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100609/ap_on_re_us/us_utah_firing_squad