Robert M. Gwilliam

Death Penalty in Utah

Group case study on Elroy Tillman

• Capital punishment is legal in Utah. Since 1850.

• A total of at least 50 individuals have been executed in Utah.

• A total of 9 people are under a sentence of death in the state as

of June 20, 2010.

• The current method is lethal injection.

• Aggravated murder is the only crime subject to the penalty of

death under Utah law.

• Utah was the first state to resume executions after capital

punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, when

Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad on January 17, 1977.

Gilmore, however, demanded his own execution, that is after

being convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Capital Punishment

Aggravated Murder (not verbatim)

The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, cruel or depraved (or involved torture).

• The murder was committed incident to a hijacking

• The defendant knowingly created a grave risk of death for one or more persons in addition to the victim of the offense.

• The defendant committed or attempted to commit more than one murder at the same time.

• The murder was committed by means of poison or a lethal substance.

• The murder was committed for pecuniary gain or pursuant to an agreement that the defendant would receive something of value.

• The defendant caused or directed another to commit murder, or the defendant procured the commission of the offense by payment, promise of

payment, or anything of pecuniary value.

• The murder was committed to avoid or prevent arrest, to effect an escape, or to conceal the commission of a crime.

• The capital offense was committed to interfere with the lawful exercise of any government function or the enforcement of the laws.

• The defendant has been convicted of, or committed, a prior murder, a felony involving violence, or other serious felony.

• The capital offense was committed by a person who is incarcerated, has escaped, is on probation, is in jail, or is under a sentence of imprisonment.

The actor was under a sentence of life imprisonment or a sentence of death at the time of the homicide.

• The victim is or has been a local, state, or federal public official, or a candidate for public office, and the homicide is based on, is caused by, or is

related to that official position, act, capacity, or candidacy.

• The murder was committed against a person held as a shield, as a hostage, or for ransom

• The murder was committed against a witness in a criminal proceeding to prevent the witness from appearing, or for revenge.

• The homicide was committed while the actor was engaged in, or attempted to, or flight from committed or attempted child abuse.

• The defendant was involved in the desecration of a dead human body or dismembering, mutilation, or disfiguring of the victim's body, either before or

after death, in a manner demonstrating the actor’s depravity of mind. The homicide was committed incident to the abuse or desecration of a dead

body.

• The murder was committed by means of any weapon of mass destruction.

UCA 76-5-202.   Aggravated murder.

• The jury decides the sentence and may give a sentence of death, life imprisonment without parole for sentencing on or after April 27, 1992 or life imprisonment without parole for twenty years or more.

• Clemency rests with the State of Utah Board of Pardons and Parole and the Governor of Utah sits on the board, which makes Utah one of a handful states where the Governor has no sole power to grant clemency. As of 2008 no commutation of the death sentence has been given in Utah.

• As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime or mentally retarded  are constitutionally precluded from being executed.

Process

• Executions in Utah are currently performed at the Utah State Prison in Draper by lethal injection.

• The firing squad was also available for three death row inmates who chose it prior to that option's elimination in 2004.

Current Method

• Before a national moratorium on capital punishment (1967–1976) and the introduction of lethal injection in 1980,Utah historically allowed death row inmates to choose between firing squad and hanging, the only state to do so up until that time.

• Prior to becoming a state, the Territory of Utah introduced beheading in 1851 as a third option of execution in accordance with the Mormon concept of blood atonement at the time. No prisoner chose this method and it fell out of practice in 1888.

• Before the establishment of Utah Territory on September 9, 1850, the garroting of an Ute native named Patsowits in the spring of that year was the first recorded execution in the provisional State of Deseret.

• In 1955, Utah lawmakers voted to introduce the electric chair, but due to failure to provide appropriation, the state never used electrocution. 

Previous Methods

Garroting

USP Firing Chamber Chair

USP Execution Chamber

• 1878: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Wilkerson v. Utah that the firing squad is a legitimate method of applying the death penalty. It holds that other methods--drawing and quartering, disemboweling, beheading, public dissection, and burning alive--do constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

• June 29, 1972: The Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Furman v. Georgia that the imposition of the death penalty in the cases involved constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. 

• The ruling effectively voids 40 death penalty statutes and suspends the death penalty.

• July 2, 1976: The Supreme Court rules 7-2 In Gregg v. Georgia that the punishment of death does not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments under all circumstances as long as it is carried out in a careful and judicious manner. 

• The case effectively legalizes capital punishment.

Federal Case Law

 Wallace Wilkerson (1834 – May 16, 1879)was an American stockman who was sentenced to death by the Territory of Utah for the murder of William Baxter. Wilkerson professed his innocence, but chose to die by firing squad over hanging or decapitation. The execution was botched; Wilkerson took up to 27 minutes to die because the firing squad missed his heart.

His case, Wilkerson v. Utah, was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States and continues to be cited in present day case law involving cruel and unusual punishment.

Wallace Wilkerson (Federal Case Law out of Utah)

• Utah was the first state to resume executions after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad on January 17, 1977.

• Ronnie Lee Gardner became the third person in the modern era to be executed by firing squad in 2010.

• Utah is the only state to have executed inmates by firing squad in the modern era. 

• 21-year-old Barton Kay Kirkham was the last prisoner to be hanged by the state of Utah, in 1958.No subsequent inmate had been executed in the state in this manner by February 1980, when the Utah State Legislature replaced the option of hanging with lethal injection.

• Eight hours after 36-year-old murderer John Albert Taylor died by firing squad on January 26, 1996, the first bill proposing to eliminate this method of execution was introduced in the Utah House of Representatives. In 2004, the legislature passed HB180, which removed the right of the condemned to choose their method of execution, and left lethal injection as the only remaining option in the state. The abolition of the firing squad is not retroactive; three inmates on death row at Utah State Prison who chose this method of execution before the end of February 2004 will have their selections grandfathered in. Utah's latest execution, that of 49-year-old Ronnie Lee Gardner, was the country's first sanctioned shooting in 14 years and the first execution by a method other than lethal injection since Virginia electrocuted Paul Warner Powell on March 18, 2010.

• 44 executions occurred in the State of Utah and Utah Territory before the national moratorium in 1967;six were by hanging and the rest were by firing squad. 

Other interesting facts

State/Rank 2010 Population

Cumulative Executions:

1976-August 2, 2011

Executions per Capita (x10,000)

19. Utah 2,763,885 7 0.025

Rank Since 1976

Executions After 1976 # Name Date of execution Method of execution

1 Gary Gilmore January 17, 1977 firing squad

2 Pierre Dale Selby August 28, 1987 lethal injection

3 Arthur Bishop June 10, 1988 lethal injection

4 William Andrews July 30, 1992 lethal injection

5 John Albert Taylor January 27, 1996 firing squad

6 Joseph Mitchell Parsons October 15, 1999 lethal injection

7 Ronnie Lee Gardner June 18, 2010 firing squad

# Name Date of execution Method of execution

* Patsowits Spring 1850 garroting

12

Antelope and Long Hair

September 15, 1854 hanging

3Thomas H. Ferguson

October 28, 1858 hanging

4 William Cockcroft September 21, 1861 firing squad

– "Unknown Man" 1862 firing squad

5 Jason R. Luce January 12, 1864 firing squad

6 Robert Sutton October 10, 1866 firing squad

7 Chauncy W. Millard January 29, 1869 firing squad

Executions Before 1972

8 John Doyle Lee March 23, 1877 firing squad

9 Wallace Wilkerson May 16, 1879 firing squad (botched)

10Frederick Hopt (a.k.a. Fred

Welcome) August 11, 1887 firing squad

11 Enoch Davis September 14, 1894 firing squad

12 Charles H. Thiede August 7, 1896 hanging

13 Pat Coughlin December 15, 1896 firing squad

14 Peter Mortensen November 20, 1903 firing squad

Executions Before 1972 Continued

15 Frank Rose April 22, 1904 firing squad

16 J. J. Morris April 30, 1912 hanging

17Jules C. E. Szirmay (a.k.a. Jules

Zirmay) May 22, 1912 firing squad

18 Harry Thorne September 26, 1912 firing squad

19 Thomas Riley October 24, 1912 firing squad

20 Frank Romeo February 20, 1913 firing squad

21 Joe Hill November 19, 1915 firing squad

Executions Before 1972 Continued

22 Howard DeWeese May 24, 1918 firing squad

23 John Borich January 20, 1919 firing squad

24 Steve Maslich January 20, 1922 firing squad

25 Nick Oblizalo June 9, 1922 firing squad

26 George H. Gardner August 31, 1923 firing squad

27 Omer R. Woods January 18, 1924 firing squad

28Henry C. Hett (a.k.a. George

Allen) February 20, 1925 firing squad

Executions Before 1972 Continued

29 Pedro Cano May 19, 1925 firing squad

30 Ralph W. Seyboldt January 15, 1926 firing squad

31 Edward McGowan February 5, 1926 firing squad

32 Delbert Green July 10, 1936 firing squad

33 John W. Deering October 31, 1938 firing squad

34 Donald Lawton Condit July 30, 1942 firing squad

35 Robert Walter Avery February 5, 1943 firing squad

Executions Before 1972 Continued

36 Austin Cox Jr. June 19, 1944 firing squad

37 James Joseph Roedl July 13, 1945 firing squad

38 Eliseo J. Mares Jr. September 10, 1951 firing squad

39 Ray Dempsey Gardner September 29, 1951 firing squad

40 Don Jesse Neal July 1, 1955 firing squad

4142

Verne Alfred Braasch andMelvin Leroy

SullivanMay 11, 1956 firing squad

43 Barton Kay Kirkham June 7, 1958 hanging (last in Utah)

44 James W. Rodgers March 30, 1960firing squad (last in Utah

before 1967)

Executions Before 1972 Continued

www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

s1.reutersmedia.net

historytogo.utah.gov

libweb.slcc.edu

sks.sirs.com

www.nytimes.com

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en.wikipedia.org

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