Utah executes Gardner by firing squad... And attorney-general tweets about it

In the early hours of Friday June 18th, Utah death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by a firing squad.

In front of nine media witnesses, Gardner sat locked into the chair, head held upright, as the prison warden draped the black hood over his head and fixed a small target over his left breast using Velcro. The 5 man firing squad then readied their weapons, only 4 of which were loaded with live ammunition allowing some doubt in their minds as to who committed the act. Shots rang out. Several witnesses later described Gardner moving his hand and arm after he was shot. At 12:20 a.m. MST, he was dead. The medical examiner lifted Gardner's hood, revealing his ashen face, mouth hanging open, very dead.

The execution is reminiscent of the good old days when men were marched up to brick walls, given a ceremonial last cigarette, blindfolded, and then shot dead. However, the method by which Utah's attorney general announced the execution was anything but old fashioned.

"I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution" tweeted attorney general Mark Shurtleff. "May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims."

I don't use Twitter because it irritates me - people I barely know and certainly don't care about tweeting every few minutes about eating breakfast or thinking about going to the pub. This makes what the AG did even more shocking. To announce that a man is about to be killed in such a casual way is almost as sickening as the awful way in which the execution was carried out. Sure, Gardner chose that method. But then again, it may well have seemed like the lesser of two evils in his mind. The barbaric nature of the execution was such that even some of the friends and relatives of Gardner's VICTIMS were amongst those petitioning for a commuted sentence.

I'm sickened by Shurtleff's disgusting disregard for the sanctity of human life. I'm sickened by the cruel way this man died. But most of all, I'm sickened that - as we continue to kill and kill in methods old and new - nobody seems to realise how outdated the death penalty is.

If we've come to a point where it's acceptable to announce whether an execution will proceed or not on TWITTER, then we've come to a point where a moratorium on the death penalty is not only desirable. It's essential.