Crime  | 
murder

Condemned Killer Opts for Execution by Firing Squad

Ronnie Lee Gardner set to die June 18 after 25-year legal battle
Posted Apr 23, 2010 8:00 AM CDT
Updated Apr 23, 2010 2:50 PM CDT
Condemned Killer Opts for Execution by Firing Squad
The chair in which John Albert Taylor was scheduled to be executed by firing squad, Jan. 24, 1996, in Point of the Mountain, Utah.   (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, File)

A Utah man convicted in the 1985 murder of a lawyer has exhausted his legal options and will be executed in June—by a firing squad. Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was attempting to escape from a courthouse in Salt Lake City when he shot and killed Michael Burdell, said he opted against lethal injection because he wants to embarrass Utah, the sole remaining state where the firing squad is an execution option, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

"I would like the firing squad, please," Gardner, 49, said today. His lawyer plans an appeal, the AP reports.

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