State And Federal Info
Ronnie Lee Gardner became the third person in the modern era to be executed by firing squad on June 18, 2010. It has not executed anyone since.
On July 24, 1984, a state holiday commemorating the arrival of Mormons in the Salt Lake Valley, Ronald Lafferty and his brother Dan murdered his sister-in-law Brenda and her baby daughter, delusionally believing that they had been responsible for his excommunication from the Church of Latter Day Saints. Lafferty, who was severely mentally ill, and his brothers had formed a breakaway polygamous sect they called the School of the Prophets. He said he had received a “divinely inspired” vision to commit the killings. Lafferty was sentenced to death in 1985, but a federal appeals court overturned his conviction because of his concerns over his mental competency. His retrial was delayed after a court found him incompetent to stand trial in 1992. Two years later, he was deemed competent to be retried. He was retried and convicted in April 1996 and again sentenced to death.
Lafferty died on Utah’s death row in November 2019 at the age of 78. At the time, he was Utah’s longest-serving death-row prisoner. Lafferty’s case was the subject of Jon Krakauer’s 2003 book, Under the Banner of Heaven.
Utah was the first state to resume executions after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad on January 17, 1977.
Utah is the only state to have executed inmates by firing squad in the modern era.
Public Opinion
Dec 06, 2022
In a year that featured massive campaign advertising attempting to portray legal reformers as responsible for increases in violent crime, candidates committed to criminal legal reform or who promised to continue statewide moratoria on executions p…
Innocence
Dec 01, 2022
A Utah judge has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Douglas Carter, finding that prosecutors knowingly withheld from the defense evidence that police coerced false testimony from two key witnesses, coached …
Recent Legislative Activity
Feb 17, 2022
A high-profile Republican-led effort to abolish the death penalty in Utah has failed in committee by a single vote. State representatives in the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee voted 6 – 5 on February 14, 2022 n…
Recent Legislative Activity
Jan 19, 2022
Two conservative Republican legislators, both former supporters of capital punishment, have introduced legislation that would end death-penalty prosecutions in Utah. On January 18, 2022, the first day of the three-month 2…
New Voices
Dec 30, 2021
When Utah County Attorney David Leavitt (pictured) announced on September 8, 2021 that his office would no longer pursue the death penalty, his decision to do so was emblematic of a broader shift in conservative thinking on the de…
Public Opinion
Nov 08, 2021
New public opinion polls show that, consistent with national trends, support for the death penalty is declining in the conservative strongholds of Utah and Oklahoma. A Deseret News/Hinckley Instit…
Costs
Sep 15, 2021
Four Utah district attorneys, representing counties that comprise 57.5% of the state’s population, have urged the state legislature and Utah Governor Spencer Cox to enact legislation to repeal and replace Utah’s d…
Deterrence
Sep 08, 2021
Efforts to end the death penalty in Utah edged forward on September 8, 2021 as two Republican legislators revealed plans to introduce legislation to “repeal and replace” the state’s capital punishment law and the prosecuting attor…
Costs
May 05, 2021
A former Utah defense lawyer has received a $250,000 settlement after suing Weber County for allegedly firing him in retaliation for his public criticism of the county’s refusal to properly fund a death-row prison…
Costs
Oct 14, 2020
A federal district court judge has issued an order moving closer to trial a lawsuit filed against a Utah county for the alleged retaliatory firing of a lawyer who had publicly criticized the county for refusing to adequately fund …
