By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 11:53 AM on 17th June 2010
Final preparations have begun in America for the controversial execution of a convicted killer by firing squad tomorrow.
Barring a last minute reprieve by the U.S. Supreme Court, Ronnie Gardner will be shot by a team of five anonymous marksmen in Utah just after midnight.
The 49-year-old will be strapped to a chair, a hood will be placed over his head and a small white target will be pinned on his heart before the order, 'Ready, aim, fire' is given.
Relatives of his victims are expected to make up the two dozen-strong crowd who will watch from three observation rooms that surround the execution chamber.
Ronnie Gardner appears before Judge Robin Reese at the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City, where Gardner's execution date was set
Should it go ahead, Gardner will become the third person executed by firing squad in Utah - or anywhere else in the US - since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Utah has long held off from banning the firing squad and is the only state that allows it.
In 2004 it made lethal injection the default mode of execution but inmates condemned before then, such as Gardner, can still choose the firing squad.
Critics call it barbaric and protests are expected right up until the last minute.
In a previous rally against the execution, Bishop John C. Wester, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, said: 'The firing squad is archaic, it's violent, and it simply expands on the violence that we already experience from guns as a society.'
Even Utah State Republican Sherly Allen, who favours the death penalty, disapproved of shooting because it shifts attention away from the victim to the convicted killer.
The chair that will be used when Gardner will be executed by firing squad at the Utah State Prison on Friday. Gardner will be strapped into the metal chair, which is surrounded by sandbags to catch any stray bullets. The seat of the chair is mech and the chair sits on a sloping metal tray which is supposed to catch any blood. There are straps for his shoulders, chest, arms, thighs and ankles to keep him properly seated
The rifle ports that will be used by his five executioners, volunteers from local law enforcement, who will be stationed at the far end of a 19ft by 23ft room facing the condemned. They will be armed with .30-calibre rifles but only four of the five will carry live rounds. One of the guns will have a blank wax bullet allowing some doubt among the shooters as to who actually participated in the execution
But some experts argue it is more humane than all other execution methods, without the court challenges of cruelty that plagued lethal injection.
'Lethal injection, which has the veneer of medical acceptability, has far greater risks of cruelty to a condemned person,' said Fordham University Law School professor Deborah Denno, who has written extensively on the constitutional questions that surround execution methods.
The reasons that Ronnie Lee Gardner chose death by firing squad are not related to the drama or controversy it evokes, his lawyer said.
'It's not about the publicity. He just prefers it,' Andrew Parnes said.
Gardner was sentenced to death for a 1985 capital murder conviction stemming from the fatal courthouse shooting of lawyer Michael Burdell during an escape attempt.
Gardner was at the court because he faced another murder charge linked to the shooting death of bartender Melvyn Otterstrom.
The Utah Department of Corrections has released few details of how he will be executed, citing security concerns, and instead referred to a manual written in 1986.
Gardner is restrained on the lawn at the Metropolitan Hall of Justice, in Salt Lake City after the courthouse shooting death of Michael Burdell
It details how Gardner will be strapped into a winged, black metal chair with a mesh seat that was built for the execution of John Albert Taylor, the last person to be executed by firing squad in 1996 for the rape and strangulation of an 11-year-old girl.
A metal tray beneath the chair is designed to collect any blood that runs from the executed prisoner's body. For Taylor's execution, sandbags were also stacked behind the chair to catch any stray bullets.
Once the witnesses are in place, the prison warden will open the curtains on the observation room windows and Gardner will be asked for any last words.
Then, after a final check for a stay with the Utah attorney general's office, comes the order to the executioners, who fire from a distance of about 25 feet.
The guns are handed out randomly to the officers and one will be loaded with a blank, so no one will know who fired the fatal shot.
Tami Stewart, right, is comforted as she makes a statement during Gardner's commutation hearing. Stewart is the daughter of Deputy Nick Kirk, who was shot and wounded by Gardner in 1985
Gary Gilmore speaks to George Latimer, the Utah Board of Pardons chairman, to hear whether he will be allowed to die by firing squad in 1977
Late on Tuesday, his lawyers appealed to both the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver and the US Supreme Court, hoping to block the execution.
It was the same day Gardner ate what may be his last meal - steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream and 7UP.
Utah State Prison officials said Gardner now intends to fast until the execution set for early Friday.
Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah on January 17, 1977 - after famously uttering the last words, 'Let's do it'. Taylor followed on January 26, 1996.
Of the 49 executions held in Utah since the 1850s, 40 were by firing squad.
The method has also been widely used around the globe and was long the primary method of execution employed by the military, including in the US.
But lethal injection became the primary method used by most of the 35 states that still have capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre website. Yet it isn't without controversy.
University of Colorado law professor Michael Radlet has been tracking botched executions in the US and found some 42 cases that went wrong between 1982 and September 2009. Of those executions, 30 were lethal injection, 10 were electrocution and two were from asphyxiation after exposure to lethal gas.
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