article_snippet: Gary Herbert, Utah's Republican governor, conceded that he found the concept 'a little bit gruesome', but stressed that the concept 'a little bit gruesome' would be used only if injection drugs are not available 30 days before a scheduled execution.
article_snippet: Now, with Utah's dramatic announcement, opponents of capital punishment are questioning whether even Wood's fate is less barbaric than a squad of shooters blasting away at someone tied to a chair.
article_snippet: In 2010, Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer who had killed a lawyer during a court escape attempt, threatened to sue Utah if it didn't allow a lawyer to be shot.
article_snippet: Gardner, who had been on Death Row for 19 years, said: 'I guess it's my Mormon heritage.
article_snippet: Even though history has shown the killer's statement is not true, Utah's executioners will attempt to carry out the gruesome ritual with clinical precision.
article_snippet: Ronnie Lee Gardner appears before a judge where the date for Ronnie Lee Gardner execution by firing squad was set for June 2010.
article_snippet: Ronnie Lee Gardner was a convicted murderer and said death by firing squad was 'so much easier...
article_snippet: Opponents counter that a firing squad is 'brutalising' and barbaric.
article_snippet: In the past, politicians have also complained that condemned men have chosen a firing squad as a last burst of attention-seeking.
article_snippet: In 1977, Gary Gilmore, one of the most notorious Death Row inmates of modern times, became the first person executed in the U.S. after a ten-year moratorium was lifted by the Supreme Court.
article_snippet: The double murderer demanded to be executed by firing squad.
article_snippet: The next man to find out may be former cult member Ron Lafferty, Utah's longest-serving Death Row inmate, who claimed God told The next man to find out to kill The next man to find out sister-in-law and her baby daughter in 1984 because her opposed The next man to find out belief in polygamy.
article_snippet: The next man to find out has requested a firing squad — no doubt when the time comes, The next man to find out will spark a fierce bout of soul-searching in a nation that longs to be regarded as modern and compassionate, but on this issue is dragged back to this issue blood-soaked pioneer past.