Ronnie Lee Gardner’s death by firing squad last Friday was the first time in 14 years that an American inmate was executed by firing squad — a method Gardner choose over lethal injection. Utah essentially banned firing squads in 2004 but allowed Gardner to choose his method of execution since he was sentenced before the state ban. Gardner was the third man to die by firing squad since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. He was sentenced to death in 1985 for fatally shooting an attorney during a failed escape attempt from a Salt Lake City courthouse. At the time, he was facing a 1984 murder charge for the shooting death of a bartender.

Interestingly, the attorney’s family opposed the death penalty and asked for Gardner’s life to be spared. Relatives of the bartender lobbied the parole board to reject Gardner’s request for clemency and a reduced sentence. Those opposing points of view regarding the death penalty are reflected in polling data.

According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans in favor of the death penalty has fluctuated significantly since 1936, ranging from a low of 42% in 1966, to a high of 80% in 1994, though public opinion has stabilized in recent years with 65% supporting the death penalty in October 2009.

Given that roughly 2/3 of the country currently supports it, one would assume that the prospect of receiving a death sentence would deter would-be murderers from committing such offenses.  In fact, the murder rate in states that do not have the death penalty is consistently lower than in states with the death penalty.  The South, which carries out over 80% of the executions in the U. S., has the highest murder rate of the four regions. Research conducted by the Death Penalty Information Center from data supplied by the FBI, found that murder rates in death penalty states in 2007 was 42% higher than in non-death penalty states. Statistics from the latest FBI Uniform Crime Report also found that regions of the country that use the death penalty the least are the safest for police officers.

It also costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A New Jersey Policy Perspectives report concluded that before the state repealed the death penalty in 2007, it had cost New Jersey taxpayers $253 million since 1983, a higher cost than if the state would have utilized a sentence of life without parole.

80% of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association do not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect. And, surprisingly, a 2004 poll found that 62% of people in the U.S. believed that the death penalty was not a deterrent even though they supported the use of it.

Then there is a growing concern regarding guilt. Thanks to the Innocence Project, as of June 20, 2010, 254 people have been released from prison after new evidence proved they were not guilty, 17 of those inmates were on death row.

So if there are possibly more innocent death row inmates, the majority of research doesn’t support the use of the death penalty, and 62% of the American people do not believe it deters crime, why do states continue to use it? Polling data give us some answers. When asked their feelings about the continued use of the death penalty, 91% of respondents said politicians support it in order to appear tough on crime. However, 75% said that it distracts legislatures on the state and national level from focusing on real solutions to crime problems.

Certainly there’s some satisfaction in seeing a double-murderer like Ronnie Lee Gardner get what many believe he had coming to him. There may be closure for the victim’s family, and there’s an obvious irony in Gardner’s chosen method of execution in that he used a gun to kill both his victims.

Yet, murderers like Gardner rarely think about the possible consequences of their acts. They commit murders largely in the heat of passion, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or because they are mentally ill. Those who carefully plan their crimes beforehand like the sociopaths often portrayed on television and in the movies figure they won’t get caught.

And so the question remains. Should states continue to use the death penalty?