Posted on 05/23/2003 4:45:25 PM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Utah seeks gunmen for 2 scheduled executions
White supremacist, serial killer chose firing squad; appeal pending
05/23/2003
SALT LAKE CITY – The only state that dispatches condemned inmates by firing squad is assembling gunmen for back-to-back executions next month.
The nation's last execution by firing squad was in 1996.
Exercising their right under Utah law, serial killer Roberto Arguelles and Troy Michael Kell, a white supremacist who stabbed a fellow inmate to death, have chosen the firing squad over lethal injection and are set to die at 12:01 a.m. on June 27 and 28, respectively. However, Mr. Kell filed an appeal last week that will probably halt his execution.
Of the 850 inmates put to death in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, two have died by firing squad, both in Utah: Gary Gilmore in 1977 became the first person executed in the United States after the court's ruling, and John Albert Taylor was put to death 19 years later. Since 1977, Utah has executed four other killers, all by injection.
Death penalty opponents are protesting, contending that the firing squad amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. And the prison is bracing for large crowds of protesters.
Utah's use of firing squads predates statehood in 1896 and is a remnant of the early Mormon belief that bloodshed is a required punishment for taking a life, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which says it is neutral about the death penalty but critical of its application.
"Certainly no other state has continued its use or allowed people to choose it. It's the one thing that stands out," Mr. Dieter said. The notion that murder must be atoned for in blood has never been part of official church doctrine, and the Mormon church has not taken a formal position on execution methods, said Robert Millet, a religion professor at Brigham Young University.
The Utah Corrections Department is recruiting law enforcement officers for two five-member firing squads, asking the police departments in the communities where the crimes were committed to nominate volunteers. The officers' identities will not be disclosed, and participants will be barred from talking publicly.
A hood will be put over the condemned man's head and a target will be pinned over his heart. The executioners will fire simultaneously from gun portals in a separate room at the inmate, seated in a chair about 30 feet away.
One of the five rifles will contain a blank so that no one will know who fired the fatal shots.
In 1992, Mr. Arguelles abducted and strangled Margo Bond, a janitor at a junior high school where he had been hunting for teenage victims. He also kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed two girls, ages 13 and 15, and stabbed a 16-year-old girl more than 40 times. He was sentenced to death in 1997. Mr. Arguelles has repeatedly said he wants to die.
Mr. Kell was convicted in 1996 of killing a black man, Lonnie Blackmon, at the Utah State Prison. Mr. Kell, serving time for a previous murder, stabbed Mr. Blackmon 67 times with a homemade knife in 1994. A prison videotape shows Mr. Kell shouting, "White power!" during the attack.
Utah has 11 men on death row. Besides Mr. Arguelles and Mr. Kell, two other inmates have chosen to die by firing squad.
A two inch drop would be one way to prevent this. They'd just have to leave him dangling for 30 minutes or so.
From what I've read, things are much less clear in volley-fire situations. I've read reports of rifles recovered from civil war battlefields which were double-charged or triple-charged (powder,patch,ball,powder,patch,ball). In those cases, the soldier most likely didn't realize his rifle had misfired and thus loaded it again.
To be sure, most movies or TV plots where someone substitutes a blank for live ammo are completely absurd. Not all such real-life situations are so absurd, however.
hehe !
(Conjuring up my best Bob Barker impersonation):
Deathscythex, come on down! You're the next contestant on The DR Inmate's a Goner ! . . .
The use of a blank is just a sop to encourage a reluctant member of the firing squad into thinking that maybe he won't be the one to do the actual killing. It seems a little dishonest to me; might as well admit what one is about to do and face up to it. Of course this business about firing blanks probably came about at the same time that public executions were done away with; we all became very squeamish about executions a little over a hundred years ago, for some reason.
Notice how the media's been headlining this story: like being a white supremacist places someone in the same league as a serial killer and rapist.
But of course. If they could get away with it, they would paint the white supremacist in a worse light compared to the serial killer and rapist. They won't tell you that a lot of whites are raped in prison, and that is why racial gangs are formed. If liberals were really serious about preventing the formation of "racists" in prison, they'd do something about prison rape. But nowadays people openly use the threat of prison rape as another reason to knuckle under and obey Big Brother. It's treated like a joke or "just desserts" when in fact it is no laughing matter, and almost never "just".
How sad.
The privilege to participate in the execution of scum should be one of life's great joys.
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