Ronnie Lee Gardner

Ronnie Lee Gardner was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was the youngest of Dan and Ruth Gardner's seven children. Dan was a heavy drinker who left the household to start another family while Ronnie was a toddler; Dan and Ruth divorced when Ronnie was 18 months old. Six months later, Ronnie was found malnourished and wandering the streets alone in a diaper. Child welfare workers filed a "failure to care" petition and took him into custody, though they later returned him to his mother. Gardner's relationship with his father was tumultuous; Dan did not believe he was Gardner's biological father and frequently told his son of his belief. According to Gardner, he was raised by an older sister, and was sexually abused by his siblings. Sometimes he and his sister Bonnie would run away and seek refuge in a "hobo camp." By the age of 10, Gardner was addicted to drugs and permitted access to alcohol. He and his brother Randy were arrested for stealing cowboy boots and taken into juvenile detention. Gardner recalled with distress that his father Dan came to take his brother Randy home and left him behind. ==Early institutionalization==

Gardner's mother married Bill Lucas, who had been incarcerated in Wyoming in 1968. Gardner successfully escaped the prison's maximum security unit on April 19, 1981, and was shot in the neck while attempting to kill a man who he believed had raped Bischoff. In February 1983, he was identified as a ringleader in a disturbance in which inmates barricaded a cell block and started fires. On August 6, 1984, Gardner escaped from custody at the University of Utah Hospital after faking an illness by vomiting. He attacked transportation officer Don Leavitt and forced him to unlock his shackles by telling him: "I guess you know if that doctor comes back, I'll have to kill you both." In the course of the escape, Gardner struck Leavitt so hard that he needed wires to reconstruct his face. Gardner forced a medical student named Mike Lynch to take him from the premises on a motorcycle while pointing a gun into his back. On August 11, a letter carrier found Leavitt's firearm in a mailbox with a note from Gardner that said, "Here's the gun and wallet taken from the guard at the hospital. I don't want to hurt no one else. I just want to be free." ==Murders==

During the night of October 9, 1984, Gardner robbed the Cheers Tavern in Salt Lake City. While under the influence of cocaine, he shot bartender Melvyn John Otterstrom in the face, killing him. Otterstrom's cousin Craig Watson stated that the robbery "gained less than $100." Family members said Gardner attended Otterstrom's funeral and pretended to be a childhood friend. His getaway driver was identified as Darcy Perry McCoy, who testified against him. During trial proceedings for the Otterstrom murder on April 2, 1985, Gardner attempted to escape from custody with a revolver smuggled into the Metropolitan Hall of Justice at Salt Lake City. After running to the courtroom archives, Gardner confronted attorneys Robert Macri and Michael Burdell. According to Macri, after Gardner pointed the gun at him, he changed aim to Burdell, who had been doing pro bono work for his church. Burdell yelled, "Oh, my God," then Gardner shot him in the eye. Gardner made his way outside the building, where he was surrounded by dozens of police officers. "Ordered to toss his revolver, Gardner threw it away and obeyed another order to lie down." Kirk was initially listed in critical condition at LDS Hospital, but survived surgery. During a search of the courthouse, a bag of men's clothing was found in the basement under a women's restroom sink. Her sister, Carma Jolley Hainsworth, was sentenced to eight years in prison for delivering the clothes and messages in preparation for the escape attempt, but the identity of the person who provided Gardner with the firearm was not known at the time. but Salt Lake County Sheriff N.D. "Pete" Hayward said that the guard who shot Gardner should have kept shooting until Gardner was dead. A review found that the guards were inhibited from shooting because Gardner had been using a hostage as a human shield. Sheriff Hayward said the escape attempt "appeared to be well-planned" and blamed the security breach on the layout of the Metropolitan Hall of Justice, which allowed unrestricted access to areas where prisoners were transported. Otterstrom, a mountain climber and veteran of the 19th Special Forces Group of the Utah National Guard, was survived by his wife Kathy and his five-year-old son, Jason. ==Sentencing and incarceration==

in Draper. In June 1985, Gardner pleaded guilty to the murder of Otterstrom and received a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. District Judge Jay E. Banks instructed the jury, on October 22, 1985, that they had the option of a verdict for the lesser offense of manslaughter if they found Gardner to be under mental or emotional duress when he shot Burdell. The jurors deliberated less than three hours and found Gardner guilty of capital murder. In contrast to Taylor, who said he chose the firing squad to embarrass the state, Gardner's attorney said that his client did not want to attract attention and simply preferred to die this way. Gardner's incarceration as Utah's then-youngest inmate on death row was not uneventful. A hearing was held on February 19, 1987, in which Gardner and other inmates claimed "unconstitutional confinement" in unsanitary conditions with poor food. On October 28, 1987, Gardner broke a glass partition in a prison visiting area and had sex with a woman who was meeting him, while other inmates cheered and barricaded the doors. Gardner claimed breaking the glass was an accident. In 1993, Utah state representative Dan Tuttle introduced what he called "the Ronnie Lee Gardner bill" in which he proposed that law enforcement officers be permitted to shoot inmates attempting to escape, whether they are "armed or not." because the victim did not die. Defense motions In 2007, U.S. federal judge Tena Campbell rejected Gardner's appeal that his attorneys were inadequate because they were unable to prove that he did not mean to kill his victim. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rejected motions for appeal by his defense on March 8, 2010. Gardner attempted to give up the process at least three times, but his attorneys convinced him to continue appealing each time. At Gardner's commutation hearing on June 10, 2010, lawyers and medical experts in his defense argued whether meningitis contracted at the age of 4 had damaged his brain. Gardner had also huffed gas and glue with his siblings and played with mercury stolen from gas meters by his stepfather to sell. Gardner's attorney presented a letter his client wrote to Oprah Winfrey requesting funds for the project. The family of murder victim Michael Burdell had also appealed on Gardner's behalf, stating that Burdell was a pacifist who would have opposed the death penalty. News media arrived from around the world and raised the issue of blood atonement because of Gardner's citation of his Mormon roots in selecting the firing squad. but the majority of people in Utah still supported the death penalty in the period leading up to Gardner's scheduled execution. and unanimously passed the Utah State Senate on February 17. The legislation was signed into law by the Governor on 22 March 2011. ==Execution==

The Utah Department of Corrections provided Gardner's attorney, Andrew Parnes, with documentation about executions by firing squad and lethal injection. The records included the Utah execution team's training and expertise. Parnes relayed the information to Gardner after agreeing not to disclose it to anyone else. On June 15, 2010, Gardner ate a last meal of steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream and 7-Up, before beginning a 48-hour fast while watching The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and reading Divine Justice. According to his lawyers, the fast was motivated by "spiritual reasons." Gardner walked voluntarily to his place of execution. When asked if he had any last words, he responded, "I do not, no." while playing "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. They did not witness his execution, per his request. Some wore shirts with his prisoner number 14873. ==See also==