Execution
News reports have confirmed that Ronnie Lee Gardner, who had been convicted of murder in Utah in 1985, was executed there this morning by firing squad. The report of the execution – which is not pleasant reading – gives a fairly graphic account of the manner of death.
It seems to me that it is not compatible with modern civilised values to operate the death penalty. It helps to create and maintain a coarser society in which the penal system bases itself excessively on principles of vengeance rather than justice. It is my hope that this form of punishment will soon be abandoned by the United States, which in so many other ways has led the civil rights movement in the world.
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University Blog 
June 18, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Utah dropped the option of a firing squad in 2004. Only those sentenced before that are still able to choose that form of execution. In the circumstances, I believe there are no more than a handful of people remaining who have the option.
June 18, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I don’t actually see any real difference between using a firing squad or using lethal injection, electric chair, etc. The problem is not HOW the State kills its citizens, but the fact that it does so at all.
June 18, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Agreed.
June 18, 2010 at 3:58 pm
The death penalty is, to this U.S. citizen, a continual source of outrage, embarrassment, disgust, and sadness–both because of what it is and because of how impossible it seems to be to convince enough Americans that it should be abolished. And while I live in a state that has a death-penalty moratorium in effect, I am sorry it’s still a possibility.