List of Individuals Executed in Utah Since 1976
A total of seven individuals convicted of murder have been executed by the state of Utah since the national moratorium was lifted in 1976. Utah is particularly notable in being the first state to execute a prisoner, Gary Gilmore, after the United States Supreme Court's Gregg v. Georgia decision validated the capital punishment statutes enacted in response to the 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision. Utah is also the only state besides Nevada to have used the firing squad, although executions of this type are authorized in Oklahoma for prisoners who successfully challenge the constitutionality of lethal injection and electrocution. Recent changes to state law require that any future death row inmates be executed by lethal injection; however, any prisoner who chose a firing squad before the law change will still have this option available. Only two people executed after 1977 have chosen the firing squad over the other available options - Gilmore and John Albert Taylor on January 21, 1996. Ronnie Lee Gardner, convicted of murdering Michael Burdell in 1985, was executed by firing squad on June 18, 2010, making him the third person since the reinstatment of capital punishment in Utah to be put to death in this manner.
| # | Name | Date of execution | Method of execution | Victim(s) | Governor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gary Gilmore | January 17, 1977 | firing squad | Ben Bushnell and Max David Jensen | Scott M. Matheson |
| 2 | Pierre Dale Selby | August 28, 1987 | lethal injection | Stanley Walker, Michelle Ansley, and Carol Naisbitt | Norman Bangerter |
| 3 | Arthur Bishop | June 10, 1988 | lethal injection | Alonzo Daniels, Kim Peterson, Danny Davis, Troy Ward, and Graeme Cunningham | |
| 4 | William Andrews | July 30, 1992 | lethal injection | Stanley Walker, Michelle Ansley, and Carol Naisbitt | |
| 5 | John Albert Taylor | January 27, 1996 | firing squad | Charla Nicole King | Michael Leavitt |
| 6 | Joseph Mitchell Parsons | October 15, 1999 | lethal injection | Richard Lynn Ernest | |
| 7 | Ronnie Lee Gardner | June 18, 2010 | firing squad | Michael Burdell (also killed Melvyn Otterstrom and wounded George "Nick" Kirk but was executed for murdering Burdell) | Gary Herbert |
Read more about this topic: Capital Punishment In Utah
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“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
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