A convicted killer has been executed by firing squad in the US state of Utah, reviving a style of justice that has not been used for 14 years.
Ronnie Lee Gardner was shot through the heart by a five-man team of sharpshooters at approximately 12:20 (06:20GMT) on Friday.
Gardner was sentenced to death for a 1985 courthouse shooting during an escape attempt in which a lawyer was killed.
His final appeal for a stay of execution to the US Supreme Court was rejected late on Thursday, hours before the sentence was set to be carried out.
Utah banned execution by firing squad in 2004, retaining lethal injection as the default method for carrying out death sentences.
But because he was convicted prior to that date Gardner retained the right under previous state laws to choose between lethal injection or firing squad as his method of execution.
Marksmen
Gardner was strapped into a chair with a target pinned over his chest as five anonymous marksmen armed with .30-calibre rifles fired from behind a wall.
Prison officials said that four of the guns were loaded with live rounds, while one was loaded with a blank so that the shooters would never know for sure if they fired a fatal round.
Gardner's execution makes him the third man killed by firing squad in the US since a Supreme Court ruling reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
The most famous case was the 1976 execution of Gary Gilmore, who gained notoriety for demanding that his execution be carried out and whose last words were simply "let's do it".
Gardner's attorney said his client's decision to opt for the firing squad was based on preference, not a desire to embarrass the state or draw publicity to his case.
Critics have condemned the method of execution as barbaric, archaic and reminiscent of "Wild West" style justice.
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