Casual Executions: Assassination in Arizona

Border Vigilante Shawna Forde Sentenced to Death for Home Invasion

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List of people executed in Arizona

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. An altogether good read.

Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. A piece of historical fiction that will make you marvel at the corruption and crime in AZ a few years ago. If you happen to remember the murder of Don Bolles the reporter for the AZ Republic in then this book will intrigue you.

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This murder was part of a conspiracy which this book describes through a fictional account of a similiar incident. The story ranges from dead grey hounds with their ears removed to an almost retired mafioso and his wild daughter to a retired police investigator with a serious drinking problem. Lots of twists and turns and a good read for fans of the genre. I read the book and can see how the author was able to bring this story togetner. Great action, great characters and even a bit of truth from the recent past here in Arizona make this a fascinating read. Gilmore's two court-appointed lawyers, Michael Esplin and Craig Snyder, made no attempt to cross-examine the majority of the state's witnesses, and rested without calling any witnesses for the defense.

Gilmore protested, and the following day asked the judge if he could take the stand in his own defense, perhaps arguing that due to the dissociation and lack of control he felt at the time, he had a good case for insanity. His attorneys presented the findings of four separate psychiatrists, all of whom had said that Gilmore was aware of what he was doing and that he knew it was wrong at the time. While he did have an antisocial personality disorder, which may have been aggravated by drinking and drugs, he did not meet the legal criteria for insanity.

Gilmore withdrew his request. On October 7, the jury retired to deliberate and by mid-day, they had returned with a guilty verdict.

Later that day, the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty due to the special circumstances of the crime. Gary chose to not pursue habeas corpus relief in federal court. His mother, Bessie, sued for a stay of execution on his behalf. In a five-to-four decision, the US Supreme Court refused to hear his mother's claim.

The Court's per curiam opinion said that the defendant had waived his rights by not pursuing them. At the time, Utah had two methods of execution — firing squad or hanging. Believing a hanging could be botched, Gilmore chose the former, declaring, "I'd prefer to be shot. The last of these occurred just hours before the rescheduled execution date of January That stay was overturned at 7: I don't think they have ever really done anything effective in their lives. I would like them all — including that group of reverends and rabbis from Salt Lake City — to butt out.

This is my life and this is my death. It's been sanctioned by the courts that I die and I accept that. During the time Gilmore was on death row awaiting his execution, he attempted suicide twice; the first time on November 16 after the first stay was issued, and again one month later on December Gilmore was executed on January 17, , at 8: The night before, Gilmore had requested an all-night gathering of friends and family at the prison mess hall.

Minuteman Shawna Forde Found Guilty in Home Invasion Killings

On the evening before his execution, he was served a last meal of steak, potatoes, milk and coffee but consumed only the milk and coffee. His uncle, Vern Damico, who attended the gathering, later claimed to have smuggled in three small, 50ml Jack Daniel's whiskey bottles which Gilmore supposedly consumed.

In the morning at the time of execution, Gilmore was transported to an abandoned cannery behind the prison, which served as its death house. He was strapped to a chair, with a wall of sandbags placed behind him to trap the bullets. Five gunmen, local police officers, stood concealed behind a curtain with five small holes, through which they aimed their rifles.

When asked for any last words, Gilmore simply replied, "Let's do it. Thomas Meersman, the Roman Catholic prison chaplain , administered the last rites to Gilmore. After the prison physician cloaked him in a black hood, Gilmore uttered his last words to Meersman: In Utah, firing squads consisted of five volunteer law enforcement officers [10] [11] from the county in which the conviction of the offender took place.

The five executioners were equipped with.

Prison officials stated that the firing squad comprised four men with live rounds, and one with a blank, so that the shooters could not be certain as to who fired the fatal shots. According to his memoir Shot in the Heart , "the state of Utah, apparently, had taken no chances on the morning that it put my brother to death.

Gilmore had requested that some of his organs be donated for transplant purposes. His body was sent for autopsy and was cremated later that day. The following day, his ashes were scattered from an airplane over Spanish Fork, Utah. As Gilmore was the first person in the United States executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in , his story had immense cultural resonance at the time.

It continues to influence the works of writers, artists, and advertisers in the early 21st century. Lyrics set to " Winter Wonderland " included this line: With the stretcher standing on end, Idle covered his eyes with a black blindfold and announced it as an impersonation of Gary Gilmore. In , English punk band The Adverts wrote the song " Gary Gilmore's Eyes ", a reference to the cornea transplantation. Notable for its portrayal of Gilmore and the anguish surrounding the murders he committed, the book expressed Mailer's thinking about the national debate over the revival of capital punishment.

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Another writer to blend fact with fiction was Colombian writer Rafael Chaparro Madiedo , who featured Gilmore as one of the main characters of his novel Opio en las Nubes, which won the National Prize. Jones won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Gilmore. Artist Matthew Barney 's film Cremaster 2 , featured Gilmore as the main character; it was the second of five films in the series The Cremaster Cycle.

Played by an actress, the metamorphosed character corresponding to Gilmore appears in the beginning of Cremaster 3. Mikal Gilmore , an American writer and music journalist and the brother of Gary Gilmore wrote a memoir in entitled Shot in the Heart , detailing his relationship with Gary and their often troubled family, starting with the original Mormon settlers and continuing through to Gary's execution and its aftermath. Shot in the Heart received positive reviews, including a comment by New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani calling the book "[r]emarkable, astonishing Shot in the Heart reads like a combination of Brothers Karamazov and a series of Johnny Cash ballads The punk rock single " Gary Gilmore's Eyes " by the band The Adverts was used in the soundtrack of the movie.

Many musicians have explored the Gilmore case. In , The Judy's released the song "How's Gary? The song presumably asks Gary Gilmore's mother what's wrong with him, saying that he never comes out to play anymore.

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