At inmate's request, Utah prepares firing squad

Associated Press ^ | June 8, 2010 | JENNIFER DOBNER

[Free ThinkerNY]

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- 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..."

[GonzoGOP]

what about the remote island concept..like australia was for hardened criminals

Nope, any place where they could survive, they could escape from. Mexican drug dealers can bring in helicopters, boats, or a private army to get their people off the islands.

There should be four forms of prisons. The first tier are work camps for car thieves and white collar criminals. The non violent type who can probably be reformed. They can paint bridges, repair potholes, or raise turnips to pay for their crimes. Do a good job an early release. Screw up and you move to one of the higher tiers

Second tier is what we would look at today as maximum security. You are in this range because you are violent, dangerous, or have gang connections. However they are not lifers so some effort may be made to reform them. If they show promise they can be moved to tier one. If they screw up they get moved to tier three

Tier Three: The warehouse for the condemned. If you are in this tier you aren't getting out and we aren't worried about reforming you. The goal is simply to prevent escape and spend as little money as possible. Locked in a concrete box 23 hours a day works just fine. If they go crazy, who cares.

Tier four involves a bullet and a hole in the ground.

[Renegade]

Is that Saddam Hussain in the picture?

[guitarplayer1953]

No one is talking about normal body functions here to hide from children.. The public hangings of the 1800’s were quite the deterrent for children and every good parent would that there children to at least one to let them see what the consequence is of a crime.

[Repeat Offender]

Who came up with the idea that convicted murderers shouldn't have to suffer cruel and unusual punishment?

I don't know, but the key is cruel AND unusual...... we just need to make "cruel" punishments more usual; then we'll still be in compliance.

For example: Say we decide that strapping a convict to a pile of ants (to their death) is valid punishment for those that kill their rape victims. All we need to do is apply the law equally, it is only cruel, but not unusual.

[2aberro]

Being shot by a firing squad like a courageous spy serving his own country is a more dignified method of execution than a common criminal deserves IMHO. People like him should die ignominiously at the end of a rope, not a glorious hail of bullets...

No argument from me, I agree,, hopefully, his time in jail has been hell on earth.

But if I was given the chance,, I'd take the bullet.

[TheThirdRuffian]

Saddam requested a firing squad, but he was hung like a common criminal.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

You have thought this out...Right about the island...no longer workable.

Except for gang criminals...WHO would want to ‘rescue “ them?

[Renegade]

The guy commanding the firing squad in the picture looks like Hussain!

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Killing another human being isn’t a pleasant thing to do even if it justified. I don’t believe this serious business should be reduced to the level of entertainment that appeals to the basest human instincts, nor is it a suitable sight for children.
People don’t need to see it to be aware of the fact that it happens and that it would happen to them if they were convicted of murder. Public executions would have a brutalising effect on the spectators which would lower respect for human life, which would not have a positive effect on reducing the murder rate, but quite the contrary. It isn’t simply fear which reduces the murder rate. People have to think decently in the first place....

[guitarplayer1953]

So how many soldier come home and become killers? BY your logic there should of been mass murders and crime rates after ww2 do to the high number of service people seeing death. Have you ever seen that documentary called scared straight?

[HIDEK6]

Actually, I heard his last words were “Shoot straight you basta*ds” He left in style.

That was Michael Caine in Breaker Morant.

[dfwgator]

That was Edward Woodward, not Michael Caine.

[HIDEK6]

I stand corrected.

Does Edward Woodward look like Michael Caine?

[AggieSteph]

I think this is very interesting to approach from a psychological perspective. Is it just the thought of going out quickly? Or maybe he just thinks that this sounds “cooler” than the other options?

[bert]

He probably likes burning at the stake.

[AzaleaCity5691]

I disagree with him on his death penalty position but just because he takes a position in opposition to it doesn’t mean you go and call an ordained bishop of the Catholic Church, who has direct spiritual authority from Jesus Christ, an idiot.

[Larry Lucido]

"A hot steak is better than a cold chop."

[AzaleaCity5691]

I would point out that the Roman Empire had very public executions and you didn’t really have much higher violent crime rates then in modern American cities, at least not before the Crisis.

Most of the murder in the Roman Empire was political murder and restricted to the political classes.

[Wpin]

You are correct, my apologies...my addled old brain just ain’t what it used to be.