Thirty years ago today, Gary Gilmore was executed at the Utah State Prison, the first prisoner to be put to death since the moratorium on executions was established four years prior, and the first execution in Utah in sixteen years. His refusal to appeal his death sentence confounded his lawyers and attracted the attention of the ACLU, among others, who fought to keep Gilmore alive, against his wishes. His frustrations with the uncertainty of his sentence led him to attempt suicide in prison twice.

His life and death have been recounted in several books, films, inspired a few songs, and even an SNL skit. His final words, “Let’s do it,” led to a major marketing campaign.
posted by Nathanial Hörnblowér on Jan 17, 2007 - 24 comments

Elijah Page to be executed in South Dakota. On March 12, 2000, Page and two other brutally tortured and killed Chester Poage near Spearfish, SD.(very graphic description of events). It took Page, Briley Piper, and Darrell Hoadley nearly 3 hours to finally kill Poage. This will be the first execution in South Dakota in 59 years. (more inside)
posted by killThisKid on Aug 25, 2006 - 77 comments

Convicted killer wins stay. The 9th Circuit Court feels that justice would be better served by being more sure that Cooper is actually guilty of the 4 murders he was sentenced to die for (followed from here). Considering the amount of controversy over evidence handling in this case, I think that they're right.
posted by Dipsomaniac on Feb 9, 2004 - 9 comments

In some places, they have firing squads or electric chairs. In Prague, they have defenestration. Defenestration, or the tossing of people from windows, is a tradition there, popularized first by the defenestration of 1419 and later by the defenestrations of 1618 and 1948. William Safire name-checked it in in his column a few weeks back, and another mention of it can found in the Houston Chronicle.
posted by charlesv on Dec 14, 2002 - 19 comments

TV to Air Death Chamber Tapes "The tapes were recorded by prison staff and document the events taking place in the execution chamber as narrated by prison officials witnessing the event. The descriptions follow the procedure from the securing of the prisoner to the electric chair to the pronouncement of the time of death and the removal of the prisoner's body from 23 executions. All the tapes are public record".
posted by matteo on May 2, 2001 - 3 comments