Capital punishment in Utah

Capital punishment is legal in the U.S. state of Utah. Aggravated murder is the only crime subject to the penalty of death under Utah law. Lethal injection is the state's execution method of choice; however, the firing squad is also available in certain circumstances. As of May 8, 2011, nine people are under a sentence of death in the state. Since 1850, 51 individuals have been executed in Utah. It was the first state to resume executions after the 1967-1976 national moratorium on capital punishment.

The spring 1850 garroting of Patsowits, a Ute, was the first recorded execution in the provisional State of Deseret. Utah Territory was established in September 1850, and it permitted condemned prisoners to choose between hanging and firing squad. In 1851 beheading was introduced as a third execution option. No prisoner chose this method and the option was eliminated in 1888. In 1955, Utah state lawmakers voted to introduce the electric chair; however, the state never used electrocution due to failure to provide appropriation. Forty-four executions occurred in the State of Utah and Utah Territory before the national moratorium in 1967; six were by hanging and 38 were by firing squad. The last pre-moratorium execution in Utah took place on March 30, 1960.

In 1967 when the moratorium went into effect, Utah was the only remaining state to allow death row inmates to choose between firing squad and hanging. Utah attempted to reintroduce death penalty statutes during the moratorium but they were struck down by the 1972 United States Supreme Court decision in the case Furman v. Georgia. The state formally reinstated capital punishment on January 7, 1973 and the new death penalty statutes were approved by the United States Supreme Court with the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976. The reinstatement allowed Utah to move forward with the death sentences of Dale Selby Pierre and William Andrews for crimes committed in 1974 prior to the reinstatement of capital punishment. (They were later executed in 1987 and 1992, respectively.) On January 17, 1977, Utah became the first state to execute a prisoner after the moratorium ended: Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad, having selected that method over hanging. In 1958 twenty-one-year-old Barton Kay Kirkham became the last prisoner to be hanged by the state of Utah. Lethal injection was introduced in 1980 and in February of that year the Utah State Legislature replaced the option of hanging with the option of lethal injection.

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