SALT LAKE CITY — Midnight in the firing squad chamber approaches for Ronnie Lee Gardner — a self-described "nasty little bugger" — whose childhood of neglect, drug-addiction and ever-escalating crime led to double murder by age 24 and a quarter-century waiting for his own execution.
Barring the success of any final appeals, that moment will arrive shortly after 12:01 a.m. Friday. Petitions are pending before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver and the U.S. Supreme Court.
If executed, Gardner will become the first person put to death by firing squad in the United States in 14 years.
After a visit with his family, Gardner was moved from his regular cell in a maximum security wing of the Utah State Prison to an observation cell Wednesday night, Department of Corrections officials said. He will be allowed to see his attorney and clergy Thursday.
Although he has spoken emotionally in recent days of his desire to start a program to help troubled youth, Gardner acknowledged to a parole board of his own tortured trajectory, "It would have been a miracle if I didn't end up here".
Gardner, 49, was sentenced to death for a 1985 capital murder conviction stemming from the fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt. Gardner was at the court because he faced a 1984 murder charge in the shooting death of bartender Melvyn Otterstrom.
