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Death Penalty in Utah. Robert M. Gwilliam. Group case study on Elroy Tillman. Capital Punishment . Capital punishment is legal in Utah . Since 1850. A total of at least 50 individuals have been executed in Utah.
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Death Penalty in Utah Robert M. Gwilliam Group case study on Elroy Tillman
Capital Punishment • Capital punishment is legal in Utah. Since 1850. • A total of at least 50 individuals have been executed in Utah. • A total of 9 people are under a sentence of death in the state as of June 20, 2010. • The current method is lethal injection. • Aggravated murder is the only crime subject to the penalty of death under Utah law. • Utah was the first state to resume executions after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad on January 17, 1977. Gilmore, however, demanded his own execution, that is after being convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
UCA 76-5-202.Aggravated murder. • Aggravated Murder (not verbatim) • The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, cruel or depraved (or involved torture). • The murder was committed incident to a hijacking • The defendant knowingly created a grave risk of death for one or more persons in addition to the victim of the offense. • The defendant committed or attempted to commit more than one murder at the same time. • The murder was committed by means of poison or a lethal substance. • The murder was committed for pecuniary gain or pursuant to an agreement that the defendant would receive something of value. • The defendant caused or directed another to commit murder, or the defendant procured the commission of the offense by payment, promise of payment, or anything of pecuniary value. • The murder was committed to avoid or prevent arrest, to effect an escape, or to conceal the commission of a crime. • The capital offense was committed to interfere with the lawful exercise of any government function or the enforcement of the laws. • The defendant has been convicted of, or committed, a prior murder, a felony involving violence, or other serious felony. • The capital offense was committed by a person who is incarcerated, has escaped, is on probation, is in jail, or is under a sentence of imprisonment. The actor was under a sentence of life imprisonment or a sentence of death at the time of the homicide. • The victim is or has been a local, state, or federal public official, or a candidate for public office, and the homicide is based on, is caused by, or is related to that official position, act, capacity, or candidacy. • The murder was committed against a person held as a shield, as a hostage, or for ransom • The murder was committed against a witness in a criminal proceeding to prevent the witness from appearing, or for revenge. • The homicide was committed while the actor was engaged in, or attempted to, or flight from committed or attempted child abuse. • The defendant was involved in the desecration of a dead human body or dismembering, mutilation, or disfiguring of the victim's body, either before or after death, in a manner demonstrating the actor’s depravity of mind. The homicide was committed incident to the abuse or desecration of a dead body. • The murder was committed by means of any weapon of mass destruction.
Process • The jury decides the sentence and may give a sentence of death, life imprisonment without parole for sentencing on or after April 27, 1992 or life imprisonment without parole for twenty years or more. • Clemency rests with the State of Utah Board of Pardons and Paroleand the Governor of Utah sits on the board, which makes Utah one of a handful states where the Governor has no sole power to grant clemency. As of 2008 no commutation of the death sentence has been given in Utah. • As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime or mentally retarded are constitutionally precluded from being executed.
Current Method • Executions in Utah are currently performed at the Utah State Prison in Draper by lethal injection. • The firing squad was also available for three death row inmates who chose it prior to that option's elimination in 2004.
Previous Methods • Before a national moratorium on capital punishment (1967–1976) and the introduction of lethal injection in 1980,Utah historically allowed death row inmates to choose between firing squad and hanging, the only state to do so up until that time. • Prior to becoming a state, the Territory of Utah introduced beheading in 1851 as a third option of execution in accordance with the Mormon concept of blood atonement at the time. No prisoner chose this method and it fell out of practice in 1888. • Before the establishment of Utah Territory on September 9, 1850, the garroting of an Ute native named Patsowits in the spring of that year was the first recorded execution in the provisional State of Deseret. • In 1955, Utah lawmakers voted to introduce the electric chair, but due to failure to provide appropriation, the state never used electrocution.
Federal Case Law • 1878: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Wilkerson v. Utah that the firing squad is a legitimate method of applying the death penalty. It holds that other methods--drawing and quartering, disemboweling, beheading, public dissection, and burning alive--do constitute cruel and unusual punishment. • June 29, 1972: The Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Furman v. Georgia that the imposition of the death penalty in the cases involved constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. • The ruling effectively voids 40 death penalty statutes and suspends the death penalty. • July 2, 1976:The Supreme Court rules 7-2 InGregg v. Georgiathat the punishment of death does not violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments under all circumstances as long as it is carried out in a careful and judicious manner. • The case effectively legalizes capital punishment.
Wallace Wilkerson(Federal Case Law out of Utah) • Wallace Wilkerson (1834 – May 16, 1879)was an American stockman who was sentenced to death by the Territory of Utah for the murder of William Baxter. Wilkerson professed his innocence, but chose to die by firing squad over hanging or decapitation. The execution was botched; Wilkerson took up to 27 minutes to die because the firing squad missed his heart. • His case, Wilkerson v. Utah, was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States and continues to be cited in present day case law involving cruel and unusual punishment.
Other interesting facts • Utah was the first state to resume executions after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad on January 17, 1977. • Ronnie Lee Gardner became the third person in the modern era to be executed by firing squad in 2010. • Utah is the only state to have executed inmates by firing squad in the modern era. • 21-year-old Barton Kay Kirkham was the last prisoner to be hanged by the state of Utah, in 1958.No subsequent inmate had been executed in the state in this manner by February 1980, when the Utah State Legislature replaced the option of hanging with lethal injection. • Eight hours after 36-year-old murderer John Albert Taylor died by firing squad on January 26, 1996, the first bill proposing to eliminate this method of execution was introduced in the Utah House of Representatives. In 2004, the legislature passed HB180, which removed the right of the condemned to choose their method of execution, and left lethal injection as the only remaining option in the state. The abolition of the firing squad is not retroactive; three inmates on death row at Utah State Prison who chose this method of execution before the end of February 2004 will have their selections grandfathered in. Utah's latest execution, that of 49-year-old Ronnie Lee Gardner, was the country's first sanctioned shooting in 14 years and the first execution by a method other than lethal injection since Virginia electrocuted Paul Warner Powell on March 18, 2010. • 44 executions occurred in the State of Utah and Utah Territory before the national moratorium in 1967;six were by hanging and the rest were by firing squad.
Credits • www.deathpenaltyinfo.org • s1.reutersmedia.net • historytogo.utah.gov • libweb.slcc.edu • sks.sirs.com • www.nytimes.com • upload.wikimedia.org • en.wikipedia.org
