Posted on 06/12/2010 4:33:33 AM PDT by markomalley
Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- The executioner says he was eager to join the firing squad.
Not because he was familiar with the 1996 case, or felt the need to deliver justice for a raped and murdered little girl.
It wasn't even because his high school classmate was raped and killed just before graduation.
So why did he do it? Why choose to join four other men in executing a convicted murderer?
"How often does this come along?" he says, "... 100 percent justice."
It's been more than 14 years since guns were last fired in Utah's execution chamber. But later this month, they may sound again, reviving a debate about the death penalty and the methods used to carry it out.
The one-time executioner met a CNN reporter in a Salt Lake City restaurant Tuesday to talk about his former role as Utah prepares to put Ronnie Lee Gardner before a firing squad June 18.
(snip)
"The death penalty," the officer says, "is nothing more than sending a defective product back to the manufacturer. Let him fix it."
(snip)
Utah lawmakers outlawed the firing squad in 2004, but a handful of death-row inmates who had already chosen it as their execution method were grandfathered in after family members of murder victims begged the state Legislature not to open another door for appeals, lengthening what in many cases has become at least a 20-year wait for justice.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
“The death penalty,” the officer says, “is nothing more than sending a defective product back to the manufacturer. Let him fix it.”
Wow!
Does he have any lingering effects from his role in the execution?
“I’ve shot squirrels I’ve felt worse about,” he says. He volunteered to participate, he said, and would do so again, given the opportunity.
“There’s just some people,” he says, “we need to kick off the planet.”
Do you have an issue with his thoughts on execution? Cannot tell from your posts.
Some people just need killin’.
I’d bet if firing squads were the only method of execution in this country, and carrying out the sentence was swift and certain, IOW, no 20-25 year holidays on Death Row, we would see the murder rate in this country drop by half.
Absolutely!
Where do I sign up?
Where can I get a job like this?
Kurt Vonnegut wrote about “defective units” in Breakfast Of Champions.
I’ve always thought that a bullet is faster than a bunch of chemicals.
Wow is right. If he ever lost his job, he could write amazing taglines for a living.
We have a POS on death row in this state who kidnapped raped and murdered a 9 year old girl almost 20 years ago. He has had two complete trials in different venues with the same death sentence and demanded and got DNA testing which proved him guilty beyond a doubt yet he is still alive on appeal. I would have no problems pulling a trigger, flipping a switch or pushing a syringe to rid the world of this scum and would lose no sleep over doing it.
Cheaper too, and you can re-use the brass.
So what’s the problem?
‘Come on. There are LOTS of trees, and rope is re-useable indefinitly.
There’s an aesthetic quality to a firing squad that gives the viewer the sense of justice being done, in a way that the cold, clinical medical procedure of lethal injection doesn’t.
I can’t explain it any other way.
Where do you sign up?
Yeah, but it isn’t as satisfying. Unless you count the dancing on the end of the rope, which may be satisfying to a degree.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.