Posted on 06/17/2010 6:28:06 PM PDT by Colofornian
Utah death-row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner is set to be executed by a firing squad on Friday. Thirty-five states allow the death penalty, but death by firing squad remains an option only in Utah.
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Every detail of April 2, 1985, is burned into her memory. Gardner was in court on a murder charge when he tried to escape. An accomplice slipped him a gun, and he shot and killed an attorney and also severely wounded George "Nick" Kirk, who was a bailiff. Kirk didn't die, but VelDean Kirk says he wasn't the same active, cheerful man anymore. She says his final years were marked by excruciating pain and depression from a sedentary life.
His daughter, Tami Stewart, feels sorry for Gardner, but she can't forgive him. She imagines him in the death chamber. "He's going to feel that fear that he put into every one of those men. He's done. We've given him more than enough," Stewart says.
Gardner did get one choice: how he would die. In court, after being told he'd exhausted his appeals, the 49-year-old made his preference known.
"I would like the firing squad, please," he told the court...
...Utah's last firing-squad execution 14 years ago attracted more than 150 news crews from across the globe. They were interested in one thing: the method of execution.
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Utah historian Will Bagley says the reason this method of execution exists is rooted in Utah's history as a Mormon sanctuary. "I think we need to be honest about it. We have the last firing squads in the country as a legacy of Mormon theology," Bagley says.
Some early Mormon leaders believed in blood atonement for the most egregious sins. "To atone for those, Jesus' blood didn't count. You had to shed your own blood," Bagley says.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Very good...
Must make for some uncomfortable moments in the LDS then...
So then what is really left in the LDS faith for you to practice?
st over look scurrilous charges in the most part.
Why do you think there is weekly sacrament so one can repent and stay focus
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What if you die before you get to the weekly confessional ???
Outa luck eh ???
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