Ronnie Lee Gardner, who has been on Utah’s death row for 25 years, is set to be executed on June 18. In an attempt to flee a Salt Lake City courtroom back in 1985, Gardner wounded a bailiff and killed attorney Michael Burdell. Gardner, 49, requested that he be executed by firing squad. If carried out, he will be the first to be executed by firing squad since 1996.
In February of 2009, John Gardner — no relation to Ronnie — raped, stabbed and killed 14-year-old Amber Dubois. In March of 2010, Gardner raped, strangled and killed 17-year-old Chelsea King. The crimes he committed are outright atrocious. He pled guilty to both murders and now faces a prison sentence of 33 years to life — without the possibility of parole. We assume he accepted the plea deal to avoid the death penalty.
One of the more famous executions that took place in California was that of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, a founder of the Crips gang in South Central Los Angeles. Up until his execution, Williams pleaded for clemency. He used the fact that he had turned to a life of anti-gang advocacy while in prison to substantiate his pleas for release. Williams wrote several books, including those for children, to show that he had changed.
The last time the death penalty was carried out in California was in 2006. Clarence Ray Allen was sentenced to death after killing three people. Before he was executed and during his time in prison, Allen filed several appeals and claims as to why it would be cruel and unusual punishment to follow through with his execution.
By looking at these cases, it seems that if a person is sentenced to death row, they will try to reverse the sentence and continue to deny that they are worthy of death until the day of their execution. On the other hand, to avoid being placed on the death list, a person is more likely to own up to the crimes they committed.
It is unfortunate that the death penalty is used as a scare tactic more than it is actually implemented. More unfortunate is that this scare tactic costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year.
Last Thursday, corrections officials introduced new lethal injection procedures that may restart California’s implementation of the death penalty.
The changes, according to the Los Angeles Times, “are intended to address concerns expressed by a federal judge in 2006” who believed that some on death row were exposed to “unconstitutionally ‘cruel and unusual punishment.,’ ” during their executions.
Right now, California has a little more than 700 inmates on death row. In other words, 700 inmates may possibly die before they are even executed.
California needs to rethink the death penalty. However, this process needs to involve more than putting it in moratorium.
It may be extreme to say that certain criminals, such as murderers and rapists, deserve to die. Nevertheless, they do need consequence for the gruesome crimes they commit. For millennia society has deemed this consequence to be death. If we believe it’s time for change, someone needs to act. What’s going on in California doesn’t make sense.
What makes even less sense is that Ronnie Lee Gardner of Utah will be executed this summer while a multitude of California’s inmates spend their lives in jail. Is Gardener more of a murderer because he committed his crime in Utah? Why the inequity?
Crimes as serious as murder should be punished uniformly across the country. It is unjust to sentence a man in Utah to death and a man in California to life in prison simply because one lives in Utah and the other in California.
The death penalty, unless implemented, is a waste of time and money. It has been four years since the last execution in California and although new procedures have been introduced, it may take years for these to take effect.
No one is suggesting that the death penalty be implemented but, ignoring it, like California has, is ignoring the crimes society feels it merits.
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