This week two notable executions took place. In Texas a vicious killer was executed after spending 32 years on death row – that’s right, 32 years. The other execution is notable because a double murderer was executed by a Utah firing squad.
Tuesday, the State of Texas executed David Lee Powell for shooting an Austin police officer 10 times with an AK-47 some 32 years ago. This vicious murder took place after the officer had cited a female traffic violator for not having a rear license plate. He let the driver go on her way, but when he went back to his squad car to check out the passenger he learned that Powell had outstanding arrest warrants for theft and passing bad checks. When he pulled the car over again, Powell grabbed the AK-47 and started firing away.
It’s almost beyond belief that the courts tolerated an endless series of appeals on Powell’s behalf, thus allowing this vermin to survive for 32 years. To the families and friends of victims, JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED.
Yesterday, shortly after midnight, the State of Utah executed Ronnie Lee Gardner by firing squad. The five shooters were cops who volunteered to put this scumbag out of his misery. They stood about 25 feet from Gardner, behind a wall cut with gunports, using a matched set of .30-caliber Winchester rifles. To ensure that none of the volunteers would know whether or not he fired a deadly shot, one of the rifles was loaded with a blank cartridge before being handed out to the firing squad.
Gardner had chosen execution by firing squad. He did, however, make a last minute appeal to have his life spared on the grounds that he was a ‘changed man’ and that by remaining in prison for the rest of his life, he would be able to start a 160-acre organic farm and program for at-risk youths. Now, that’s a good one!
Gardner was sentenced to death for a 1985 capital murder conviction stemming from the fatal Salt Lake City courthouse shooting of an attorney during a failed escape attempt. Gardner had been in court to face a another murder charge in the 1984 shooting death of a bartender.
The usual anti-death penalty weepers and wailers demonstrated outside the prison and outside the state capital. And while covering the pending execution on Thursday’s ABC evening news, Diane Sawyer could not hide her opposition to capital punishment in general and her explicit revulsion to Gardner’s execution by firing squad.
The Powell case in Texas clearly illustrates the fallacy of California’s ‘non-violent’ classification of inmates in order to qualify them for early release from prison. Powell was a NON-VIOLENT OFFENDER who suddenly became a vicious cold-blooded killer. The best minds in the criminal justice system cannot predict the future behavior of lawbreakers.
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