Draper, UT—I visited the prison here several years ago on an adoption matter. It’s a clean appearing seemingly well run institution for men that have done vile and horrible things. Many are dangerous career criminals housed there that should never be set free until they’re too old to hurt anyone.
After midnight tonight Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49 is going to be escorted to and strapped into a chair and five men will fire .30 Caliber Winchester rifles at a small target on his chest.
Gardner’s crime was a despicable act. He was convicted of capital murder 25 years ago for the 1985 fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt. He was desperate and 24 years-old back then.
It’s disturbing to me that an entire quarter of a century has passed. That much time would change anyone. There is no evidence since that mad act that indicates he’d re-offend or not find a peaceful way to somehow serve society even if it was behind bars. Killing Gardner now is almost like killing Peter for Paul’s crime.
Gardner made quite an exhaustive appeal to the pardon board. It served no purpose and was a total waste of breath.
Gardner can’t be blamed for the 25 year appeal process since he did not create it. I can’t help but to believe that the freakish delay and half of Gardner’s life was spent dreading his own killing at the hands of the government. At some point this should qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.
Gardner sat on Death Row for so long he watched young prison guards grow old and retire while he was waiting to die or get a commutation. That certainly qualifies as “hard time”.
I guess this execution is raw vengeance in its purest form. Taking a captive human to a death chamber is in itself a disgusting act. Being part of this kind of barbarism carries the mark of Cain. There are no heroes here.
I oppose the death penalty not because people don’t deserve that fate but because no government should have the power to kill their own citizens. Every government on earth will abuse that power sooner or later. I have no qualms about killing in legitimate self defense or defense of another.
As for Gardner he’s about to cease to exist or cross over to the “other side” if you believe there is one. One thing for sure his earthly tormentors can punish him no more.
Comments
I’d much rather see these horrible criminals shot down like dogs when they are doing their deeds.
It really is bizzaro land.
Stop reading if you aren't a Christian - Are you ready to advocate sending a man to a point from which he can no longer repent? I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Let he who is without sin throw the first stone. The incestuous relationship between the 'Law and Order' Republican Party and evangelicals has led to a herd of double minded Christians. Choose today whom you will serve.
Peace, Will.
The "death penalty" itself is ritual human sacrifice. Instead of someone personally injured physically or emotionally by the accused just shooting them on the spot in rage, the accused are trotted out and put on display after having to wait days, weeks, months, even years in dread of what will befall them. The "procedure" aka ritual is carefully prepared, charged with anticipation by an audience, and ends with a pseudo-sexual release as the accused is finally murdered (sacrificed).
All of this for a proven false belief in the fairy tale of deterrance - that is to say punishing someone for the crimes that another may or may not commit in the future. Or to appease some universal god of "justice" or retribution. And you people think you behave any differently from the savages of old?
All of this while Obama and Bush enjoy immunity - IMMUNITY - from ever being held accountable for the hundreds and even thousands of INNOCENT people who are murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan by flying terminator warbots. Their deaths are classified under the euphemism "COLLATERAL DAMAGE", but I don't think their wives, husbands, sons, and daughters who lose the people they cherish most would consider their deaths to be anything other than more ritual human sacrifice.
I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I signed off on ritual human sacrifice or collateral murder... I really don't know how you people do.
The penalty should be carried out swiftly. The shot should be fired (or the lever on the gallows pulled) by the family member or friend who wants the offender to die. Six professional marksman firing at a target attached to the chest of a guy strapped to a chair? Pure cowardice. And one of the weapons has no live rounds? Pure and utter cowardice. Integrity suggests, at the least, that only one of the six weapons should contain live rounds. Let those who volunteer to kill do so openly without self-delusion.
What if it turns out that the individual has been wrongly executed? The jury who found him/her guilty and the judge who pronounced the sentence should experience the same fate that they meted out to the mistaken individual.
A nation without honor will punish without honor. That's the problem, not whether we should impose the death penalty or not.
How many legal beagles made a living on keeping this jerk alive for a quarter century?
You can argue for/against the death penalty, but if we're going to use it, it shouldn't take a full generation to do so.
That's a mockery of justice regardless.
For those who do not, I respectfully offer this: if you believe that the worst of the worst murderers should suffer the ultimate punishment, then I suggest that life in prison is much worse than a death sentence. When you are in prison, there is no real life, and it goes on and on. Whether you believe killing is wrong, even killing murderers, or you believe that murderers should receive the cruelest punishment, life in prison trumps the death penalty on both accounts.
But what happens at the hands of the state is not justice. As mentioned, it's nothing more than a human sacrifice ritual.
It restores nothing, it compensates nothing, it remunerates nothing, it atones for nothing, and it deters nothing.
It is the most blatant reminder that our entire justice system is based on revenge - and not even revenge for offenses to people, but revenge for offenses to the state.
It would have been more just to let the victim's family determine his punishment, and for them to carry it out.
Nor do I believe the government should engage the act of capital punishment. The witnesses should. If they can't throw the stones, the criminal goes free. If the witnesses prove to be malicious liars, they should receive the punishment that their victim would have or did receive.
The state has the moral authority to take a life in such cases. Read Romans 13.
It should be the moral decision of the person wronged by the accuse to decide their fate. eye for eye and all the religious stuff.
Yes the war on drugs is evil perpetrated by those entrusted to do good!
I'm for letting Americans protect themselves on the street and in their homes with firearms just for this kind of fellow.