A state parole board on Monday unanimously denied clemency to a condemned Utah man scheduled to be executed by firing squad.
Curt Garner, chairman of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, said the board determined that the jury's verdict imposing a death sentence was not inappropriate and that no sufficient reason exists to grant clemency or to commute convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner's death sentence.
"Gardner makes no claim of innocence and admits that he is guilty of each of the crimes of which he has been convicted," Garner said Monday.
Family members of several of Gardner's victims sat holding hands as Garner read the board's decision.
"I really thought they would change it over to life," said a relieved Tami Stewart, whose father, George "Nick" Kirk, was shot and wounded by Gardner in 1985. "I don't feel happy, but it needed to be done. That's hard for me to say, because I feel sorry for him, but the jury made their decision."
The last time Utah granted clemency to a condemned man was in 1962. The board's decision cannot be appealed, but Gardner's lawyers can challenge the process, and they already have in federal court.
"We're obviously disappointed in the outcome, but we'll forge ahead," Gardner's attorney Andrew Parnes said before heading inside the Utah State Prison to talk to his client.
Gardner, 49, still has an appeal pending before the Utah Supreme Court, and Parnes has said he may still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Gardner's execution is set for Friday. He chose a 5-member firing squad over lethal injection. It's an option that is no longer available to death row inmates in Utah, but Gardner's case was among those grandfathered in before the law changed in 2004.
At a 2-day commutation hearing last week, the 5-member parole board heard nearly 8 hours of testimony about Gardner's troubled life and history of violent crime.
For more than 2 hours, they questioned Gardner and heard about his plans for an organic farm and residential program for at-risk youth. He said he believes he could help young people avoid making the kind of mistakes that landed him on death row.
"There's no better example in this state of what not to do," Gardner told the board.
Gardner was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die in 1985 for the fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell earlier that year. The shooting came during a botched escape attempt Gardner had planned over several months with an accomplice. He was in court that day to face murder charges for the 1984 shooting death of bartender Melvyn Otterstrom.
Burdell's family opposes the death penalty and had asked the board to spare Gardner's life. The Otterstrom family, and relatives of a bailiff, George "Nick" Kirk, who was shot and seriously injured during the courthouse incident, lobbied against a reduced sentence of life in prison without parole.
Gardner expressed his remorse and said he's spent much of the last 10 years learning to overcome a dysfunctional family situation riddled with physical abuse and drug use.
Kirk's widow, VelDean Kirk, said she doesn't believe Gardner has changed "for a minute" and she was happy when she heard the board's decision. Nick Kirk, a bailiff at the courthouse where Gardner fatally shot lawyer Michael Burdell in a botched escape attempt, was left with chronic health problems after the shooting. He died in 1995.
"I feel like on Thursday night, Friday morning, it will all be over with. It will be real, real closure," said VelDean Kirk, who plans to watch Gardner's execution. "I've wanted that for a long time."
Source: Associated Press, June 14, 2010
Utah parole board won't stop execution by firing squad
Utah's Board of Pardons and Parole refused Monday to commute a twice-convicted killer's death sentence, moving him one step closer to execution by firing squad.
Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49, is scheduled to die shortly after midnight on Friday before Utah's firing squad, a relatively rare method of execution.
His lawyer, Andrew Parnes, argued that Gardner was a changed man during 2 day commutation hearing last week at the Utah State Prison. Parnes said Gardner regrets killing 2 men in 2 escape attempts in 1984 and 1985. But Assistant Attorney General Thomas Brunker pointed to Gardner's "long history of relentless violence."
The parole board determined that the verdict and sentence in Gardner's second murder trial, for the slaying of lawyer Michael Burdell, was "not inappropriate," according to its written decision released Monday. The board also said that Gardner admits his crimes and there is no question of his guilt.
"The board further determines that no sufficient reason exists to grant clemency or to commute Gardner's death sentence," the document said. The decision was unanimous.
This sounds to me like somebody who wants to save his life--Assistant Attorney General Thomas Brunker
Gardner, who had a long history of escapes, was slipped a gun and fatally shot Burdell at a courthouse in Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 2, 1985. He was there for a pretrial hearing in the 1984 slaying of Melvyn Otterstrom, who was killed at the Salt Lake City bar where he was working to earn extra money.
Friends and relatives of Gardner's victims were split over whether he should be executed. Burdell's father and fiancee, along with a close friend of his, told the 5-member parole board that Burdell was a pacifist who would not want Gardner put to death.
Otterstrom's cousin, as well as relatives of Nick Kirk, a bailiff wounded in the courthouse incident, supported his execution. But in an emotional statement before the board, Otterstrom's son, Jason, who was 3 when his father was killed, acknowledged he was torn on the issue.
Parnes went before the Utah Supreme Court last week to argue that Gardner should be given a new sentencing hearing. The court has not yet ruled on that request.
"I'm glad that they went with the jury's decision," Tami Stewart, Kirk's daughter, told CNN by telephone Monday. She testified before the board last week that her father's injuries resulted in constant pain and five surgeries. He died in 1995.
"He made his choices, but I still feel bad [for him]," Stewart said of Gardner. "He did make his own choices, and he needs to follow through with his punishment, but it's still hard."
"We think it's obviously the correct outcome," Brunker, the assistant attorney general, told CNN. The board, he said, has not commuted a death sentence since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, although it's not inconceivable that it could. "It's a pretty high burden, I think, to get a death sentence commuted," he said. The board's decision cannot be appealed, he added.
Attempts by CNN to reach Parnes were not immediately successful Monday.
Board members heard testimony regarding Gardner's childhood, which was punctuated by poverty, abuse and neglect. Parnes maintained that jurors in the Burdell trial never heard this evidence -- and presented affidavits from jurors who said it might have persuaded them to decide against the death penalty.
Life in prison without the possibility of parole was not an option for jurors at the time, and Parnes said it was suggested to the jury that Gardner might be released from prison at some point if he were given a life sentence. Gardner pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Otterstrom's death, and jurors were not told of a judge's recommendation in that case that he not be released from prison, Parnes said.
Brunker pointed out in closing arguments Friday that trial jurors didn't hear the evidence regarding Gardner's childhood because he refused to let his attorneys present it. As for the jurors, he said, their main concern was to keep Gardner -- a man who had twice escaped and twice killed during those escapes -- from killing again.
The evidence is an "attempt to shift the blame ... to everybody but Mr. Gardner," he said.
Gardner told the board he doesn't want to "live for the sake of living." He and his brother want to use land they own in northwest Utah for an organic farm for at-risk youths, he testified, in a bid to keep them from making the same mistakes he made. Even if he is executed, he said, his brother will proceed with the plan.
"I think I'm the perfect example of what you shouldn't do," he said.
Source: CNN, June 15, 2010
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