Inmate slated to die by firing squad asks Utah Supreme Court to halt execution
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FOX 13 News ^
| January 11. 2018
A man who has spent decades on death row for the kidnapping, torture and murder of a southern Utah student is asking the state's top court to halt his execution. In
a hearing before the Utah Supreme Court on Wednesday, attorneys for Michael Anthony Archuleta argued that he is intellectually disabled. Archuleta is facing execution for the 1988 torture killing of Gordon Church. Archuleta, now 55, was sentenced to die for the gruesome murder of Church, who was at the time a Southern Utah State College student. Church, 28, was shocked with a car battery, raped with a tire iron...
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Three of Utah's eight death row inmates have CHOSEN to die by firing squad
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Daily Mail ^
| 25 March 2015 | Kieran Corcoran For Dailymail.com
It is a macabre choice to make - and almost unique to some inmates on Utah's death row: would you be injected with toxic chemicals, or shot in the heart? But,
amid cries of outrage against the southwestern state bringing death by firing quad back into law, almost half of those due to die that way have picked the punishment themselves. Ron Lafferty, who slit the throats of his sister-in-law and her baby daughter in 1984, is one of three who has opted to die by the bullet. Two others in Utah's eight-strong death row have made the same choice,...
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Utah governor signs 55 bills into law, brings back firing squad as method of execution
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Salt Lake Tribune ^
| 03/24/2015 | Lee Davidson
Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law Monday a bill to make firing squads the state's back-up method of execution — used whenever the state is unable to obtain drugs needed to perform lethal injections. The
Republican executive signed the firing-squad bill despite international attention on the state as it becomes alone in allowing that method of execution. (Oklahoma authorizes execution by firing squad only if lethal injection and electrocution are found unconstitutional, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.) Numerous groups called for a veto, but Herbert signaled last week that he was leaning toward signing it. "Those who voiced...
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Utah brings back the firing squad, so how does it work?
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apnews.myway.com ^
| March 24, 2015 | BRADY McCOMBS
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah Gov. Gary Herbert gave his stamp of approval Monday to a law that brings back the firing squad in the only state that has used it in the past 40 years. Under
the law, firing squads will be a backup method if lethal injection drugs aren't available. Utah and other states have struggled to keep up their inventories as European manufacturers opposed to capital punishment refuse to sell the components of lethal injections to U.S. prisons.
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Utah plans to bring back firing squads, but Oklahoma wants to try asphyxiating inmates with nitrogen
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Washington Post ^
| March 17, 2015 | Jeff Guo
As it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections, several states have sought to resurrect bygone ways of killing death-row inmates. In
Utah, which outlawed death by firing squad in 2004, lawmakers voted last week to reinstate that execution method should the state run out of drugs for lethal injection. Tennessee chose the electric chair last year as its own backup method. Last week, the Alabama House passed a bill that would do the same. Similar measures in Virginia, Missouri, and Wyoming failed last year. But in Oklahoma, a bill is advancing that would introduce an...
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Brother of man executed by Utah firing squad calls it brutal
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AP via Yahoo! News ^
| 3/12/15 | BRADY McCOMBS and LINDSAY WHITEHURST
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Randy Gardner still struggles four years later to talk about seeing his brother's bullet-riddled body at the mortuary after he was executed. -snip- "When you take somebody and you tie them to a chair, put a hood over their head, and you shoot them from 25 feet
with four rifles pointed at their heart, that's pretty barbaric."
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Utah to bring back firing squad if lethal injections unavailable
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Times of Malta ^
| 3-11-2015
Lawmakers in Utah voted last night to bring back executions by firing squad if lethal injections are unavailable, which would make it the only state in the country to permit the practice. Utah
used firing squads for decades before adopting lethal injections in 2004. The Republican-sponsored bill, which passed the state Senate by 18-10, was introduced amid national concerns about the efficacy of lethal injections. The measure, approved last month by the Utah House of Representatives, says a firing squad should be used if "the state is unable to lawfully obtain the substance or substances necessary to conduct an execution...
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In close vote, Utah House OKs firing-squad proposal
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Associated Press ^
| Feb 13, 2015 4:50 PM EST | Michelle L. Price
A hotly contested proposal that resurrects Utah’s use of firing squads to carry out executions narrowly passed a key vote Friday in the state’s Legislature after three missing lawmakers were summoned to break a tie vote. The
Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 39-34 Friday morning to approve the measure, sending it to an uncertain fate in the state’s GOP-controlled Senate. Leaders in that chamber have thus far declined to say if they’ll support it, and Utah’s Republican Gov. Gary Herbert won’t say if he’ll sign it. […] (Rep. Paul) Ray argues that a team of trained marksmen is faster and...
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Utah revives plan for executions by firing squad
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AP ^
| 11-19-14 | Michelle L. Price
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Ten years after banning the use of firing squads in state executions, Utah lawmakers on Wednesday endorsed a proposal to allow the practice again to avoid problems with lethal-injection drugs. The
proposal from Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield would call for a firing squad if the state cannot obtain the lethal injection drugs 30 days before the scheduled execution. Utah dropped firing squads out of concern about the media attention, but Ray said it's the most humane way to execute someone because the inmate dies instantly.
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