Only twenty five years late

Rico says that Kirk Johnson has the story in The New York Times, but they should've 'pulled the trigger' on this guy a lot earlier:

A five-member firing squad at the Utah State Prison took aim and fired .30-caliber bullets at a target pinned on the chest of Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer, just after midnight on Friday. He was pronounced dead at 12:20 a.m. Mountain Time, after almost 25 years on death row, and several months as the center of international attention, focused not so much on crime as his punishment.
It was the third firing squad execution in Utah (the only state actively practicing that form of punishment) since 1976, when the death penalty was restored by the United States Supreme Court. “The execution warrant for Mr. Gardner has been served,” the Utah Department of Corrections said in statement.
Mr. Gardner, 49, was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to death for murdering a man in a botched courthouse escape attempt. Last minute appeals filed by his lawyers with the United States Supreme Court, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, and Governor Gary R. Herbert were all rejected. “Mr. Gardner has had a full and fair opportunity to have his case considered by numerous tribunals,” said Mr. Herbert, a Republican, in a letter refusing to stay the execution. “Upon careful review, there is nothing in the materials provided this morning that has not already been considered and decided.”
In the 1985 courthouse escape attempt and shootout, during a hearing about an earlier murder committed by Mr. Gardner at a Salt Lake City bar, he killed an attorney, Michael Burdell, and wounded a court bailiff. The family members of those victims, testifying at a hearing earlier this month before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, were divided on the question of punishment, with some favoring execution and some pleading that the defendant’s life be spared.
Mr. Gardner’s attorneys also argued that jurors in the case voted for the death penalty without hearing adequate testimony about the years of abuse he had suffered as a child. But a member of Mr. Gardner’s legal team, Dale A. Baich, said in a telephone interview a few hours before the execution that Mr. Gardner appeared to have accepted his fate. “He’s comfortable and he’s at peace,” Mr. Baich said.
Only Utah, of the 35 states that impose the death penalty, still has death by shooting as an option, and then only for some. In 2004, the state legislature changed the penal code, mandating all executions thereafter by lethal injection. A person convicted of a capital crime who received his or her death sentence before the legal change took effect, however, can still choose between lethal injection and the firing squad. Four other death row inmates, grandfathered in under the old law as Mr. Gardner was, have indicated that they may take the firing squad option if and when their time comes.
The last firing squad execution here was in 1996, when John Albert Taylor, convicted of raping and strangling an eleven-year-old girl, was put to death. Mr. Gardner chose the firing squad as his means of execution over lethal injection in a hearing in April.
The only other state with a firing squad option in its penal code is Oklahoma, which would allow shooting of condemned prisoners only if lethal injection and electrocution are found unconstitutional.
Executions are not common in Utah. Mr. Gardner was only the seventh person put to death since 1976, compared to more than 450 in Texas. But in executions per capita— measured against Utah’s much smaller population— the state ranked 19th highest in the nation, according to calculations last year by the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment group.
Mr. Gardner ate his last meal on Tuesday, prison officials said, having decided to fast prior to his death. The meal included steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream, and 7-Up, all prepared and served at the Utah State Prison, where the execution took place, about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City. After being moved to an observation cell on Wednesday night, Mr. Gardner spent his time sleeping, reading and watching the Lord of The Rings trilogy, the Utah Department of Corrections said on its website.

Rico says that, ignoring the guy's child abuse problem (though Rico doesn't doubt that it contributed to his maladjustment), it's good riddance to bad rubbish for Mr. Gardner... (Hey, let's not forget that he was in jail for murder when he committed these!)