Ronnie Lee Gardner used a gun to end a man's life in a botched courthouse escape attempt.
Now the condemned prisoner has chosen to die by gunfire, too.
He is scheduled to be executed Friday by a firing squad, an anachronistic tradition offered by the state of Utah as an alternative to lethal injection. It’s been 14 years since a Utah death row inmate chose the firing squad option, and Gardner’s decision has thrust him into the international spotlight.
Could the same spectacle be repeated in Kansas or Missouri?
No and yes, possibly.
In Kansas and most other capital punishment states, lethal injection is the sole method of execution.
But Missouri is among a handful of states that — at least on paper — offer alternatives. Missouri law authorizes death by either lethal injection or the gas chamber, a method the state last employed in 1965.
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