Ronnie Lee Gardner

Ronnie Lee Gardner (January 16, 1961 – June 18, 2010) was an American criminal who received the death penalty for killing a man during an attempted escape from a courthouse in 1985, and was executed by a firing squad by the state of Utah in 2010.

Gardner's case spent nearly 25 years in the court system, prompting the Utah House of Representatives to introduce legislation to limit the number of appeals in capital cases.

Gardner's mother married Bill Lucas, who had been incarcerated in Wyoming in 1968.

The Gardner-Lucas family eventually had nine children.

Gardner admired Lucas, who used his stepsons as lookouts while burglarizing homes.

By his early teens, Gardner had been held in detention at a series of institutions, including an involuntary commitment at Utah State Hospital in Provo.

Gardner was small as a boy, and described that he had to fight to defend himself and earn respect.

As Gardner admitted, "I was a nasty little bugger."

While held at Utah State Industrial School in Ogden, Jack Statt, (who was living with Gardner's brother Randy) visited Gardner.

According to Gardner, Statt met Randy at a bus stop and paid him $25 for oral sex.

When released from the school in 1975, Gardner stayed with Statt.

Although social workers noted the men in the household were dressed like women, Statt officially became a foster parent to Gardner and his brother.

Gardner said that Statt performed sex acts on them and explained, "I thought life like that was normal."

Gardner stated in a psychological evaluation that he worked as a prostitute while living with Statt, who psychologists say fit the profile of a pedophile.

Gardner said his time in foster care was the most stable period of his life — "Jack was a good man, and he tried to help us out."

While Gardner intermittently continued to go to the industrial school, he met Debra Bischoff at a Salt Lake City apartment complex where his mother lived.

Bischoff described him as: "Very caring. He never put me in the rough situations he was in throughout his life. He sheltered me from that stuff."

In October 1984, Gardner killed Melvyn John Otterstrom, 37, during a robbery in Salt Lake City.

While being moved in April 1985 to a court hearing for the homicide, he fatally shot attorney Michael Burdell, 36, in an unsuccessful escape attempt.

Convicted of two counts of murder, Gardner was sentenced to life imprisonment for the first count and received the death penalty for the second.

The state adopted more stringent security measures as a result of the incident at the courthouse.

While held at Utah State Prison, Gardner was charged with another capital crime for stabbing an inmate in 1994.

However, that charge was discarded by the Utah Supreme Court because the victim survived.

In a series of appeals, defense attorneys presented mitigating evidence of the troubled upbringing of Gardner, who had spent nearly his entire adult life in incarceration.

His request for commutation of his death sentence was denied in 2010 after the families of his victims testified against him.

Gardner's legal team took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to intervene.

The execution of Gardner at Utah State Prison became the focus of media attention in June 2010, because it was the first to be carried out by firing squad in the United States in 14 years.

Gardner stated that he sought this method of execution because of his Mormon background.

On the day before his execution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a statement clarifying its position on the issue of blood atonement of individuals.

The case also attracted debate over capital punishment and whether Gardner had been destined for a life of violence since his difficult childhood.

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.