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UTAH: Death penalty opponents set to pray and to protest June 18 execution
Activists work to change law
"It is looking very unlikely that Gardner will get a stay. All of the resources have been tapped and the answer has been 'no' all the way," Nancy Appleby, chair of the peace and justice commission for the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, said in a telephone interview.
Appleby said representatives of at least seven other faith communities as well as secular groups will gather at the church tonight to pray on behalf of everyone affected by the execution, including the victims' family members and law enforcement personnel participating in the process.
Later, they will hold a rally at the state capitol, organized by Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (UTADP), to protest capital punishment.
"We are eventually hoping to convince lawmakers that this law needs to be changed," Appleby said.
Gardner, 49, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1985 for the fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell and wounding of a court bailiff during an escape attempt. He was in court to face charges in the shooting death of a local bartender and is scheduled to die by firing squad at 12:01 a.m. June 18.
Unless Gov. Gary Herbert issues a temporary stay of execution, Gardner will be the state's first death row inmate executed in a decade. Herbert has said he does not intend to interfere in the case, which has drawn national attention on both sides of the issue.
Utah bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish and other religious leaders have been vocal opponents of the death penalty.
"As Christians we condemn the taking of human life, recalling that Jesus himself was the victim of state-sponsored murder," she said in a June 9 statement.
"His death holds before our eyes the poverty of capital punishment and its capacity to dehumanize those who carry out its sentence. We yearn for the day that justice is neither retributive nor vengeful," added Irish, who is away and unable to attend the June 17 events.
But supporters, like Kent Scheidegger, director of Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, say capital punishment provides a measure of justice in spite of inconsistencies in the system.
"There are some crimes for which any lesser penalty is not justice," Scheidegger told the Salt Lake City Tribune June 11. He added that the system "by and large only sentences the worst killers to death."
The Death Penalty Information Center has identified 129 inmates who have been released from death row since 1977 owing to new evidence. Nine were exonerated and freed last year after serving a combined 121 years behind bars.
Death penalty system 'irreparably broken'
Appleby and other members of UTADP, a coalition of religious as well as secular groups and individuals, have said Gardner's case illustrates that "the death penalty system is irreparably broken."
They contend that Gardner's execution is unfair and unjust because he did not have adequate legal representation. They argue that had the original jury known mitigating circumstances, they might have opted instead for a life sentence without possibility of parole.
"Four of the original jurors have admitted that if they'd had information at the time of his trial about Gardner's childhood abuse, brain damage, illness and drug abuse they would have reached a different decision about the death penalty back then," said Appleby.
Family members of Michael Burdell, for whose murder Gardner received the death sentence, have said that Burdell would not have supported the death penalty. "And therefore they don't want Gardner to be executed," Appleby added.
State courts have consistently upheld Gardner's sentence, including the Utah Supreme Court, which on June 14 denied Gardner clemency.
In a 57-page ruling the state's high court refused to reduce Gardner's sentence to life in prison without parole or to grant him a new sentencing hearing.
The court ruled unanimously that Gardner's claims of inadequate representation and mitigating circumstances could have been raised in prior proceedings years ago. He has been on death row 25 years.
"We also conclude that Mr. Gardner has failed to demonstrate any injustice that would require us to set aside the statutory and procedural rules that control judicial review of his claim," the court said.
Gardner had contended that he is the only one of Utah's 10 death row inmates not to be afforded state funds for post-conviction relief. Such monies were unavailable at the time of Gardner's first appeal.
National and local polls have indicated that about 70 percent of the public favors capital punishment, said Appleby. "That puts us right up there with China and Iran and the rather short list of countries that still impose the death penalty, but not with any civilized countries that I would like us to be aligned with."
Out of 35 states with the death penalty, Utah allows inmates to choose their preferred method for execution. It is not known why Gardner chose death by firing squad. But Appleby said the method of execution "adds a sort of Wild West tone to this that I think is going to make the publicity even bigger than it normally would be."
If executed, Gardner will become the first person to be put to death by firing squad in the United States in 14 years.
Appleby said he opposes the death penalty because "it's barbaric. It's counter to anything we as Christians are called upon to do with regard to each other.
"We have to think that God loves these killers as much as he loves us and this is very difficult but somehow another killing doesn't mitigate what's already happened. It doesn't help anything, it doesn't help anyone," she added.
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