Gary Gilmore executed in 1977
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On this day in 1977 the American murderer Gary Gilmore was executed in Utah at 8:07 am by firing squad at Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah. , ending the nationwide moratorium on capital punishment that had been in effect for almost 10 years.
Gary Mark Gilmore was born Faye Robert Coffman on December 4, 1940 and died by highly publicized firing squad execution on January 17, 1977.
He was a criminal who gained international attention for demanding the implementation of his death sentence for two murders he had admitted to committing in Utah.
After the SCOTUS upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia, he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States.
His famous last words were allegedly "lets do it" prior to receiving the very accurate volley from those chosen for the squad. His utterly cavalier attitude toward the judicial proceedings and his execution in particular was what shocked me about him the most.
These days I'm much more brazen and jaded regarding such matters.
His life and execution were rendered into a 1979 nonfiction novel by Norman Mailer called "The Executioner's Song" which became a 1982 TV film starring Tommy Lee Jones as Mr Gilmore. Having watched the movie myself I can attest to a number of very stark and disturbing aspects of his life as portrayed in the film.