ARTHUR GARY BISHOP

There is a reason why Utah allows its condemned prisoners a choice of death by firing squad. It is not simple courtesy, but rather a nod to the early days of the Mormon Church, in the 1850s, when leaders Brigham Young and Heber Kimball preached a doctrine of strict "blood atonement." One grisly sermon by Kimball, in December 1857, claimed that Judas Iscariot did not hang himself as portrayed in the Bible, but rather that the remaining apostles "kicked him until his bowels came out (quoted at http://www.mazeministry.com)." Furthermore, the church taught in those days, sinners could show repentance best by spilling their own bloodand if they failed to do so, other members of the sect might be required to help.

Gary Gilmore (CORBIS)

That grim doctrine is thankfully ignored today, except by extremists such as "Mormon Manson" Ervil LeBaron's mass-murdering polygamist cult, but its trace lingers on in Utah's provision for death by firing squad, a blood-letting ritual unrivaled anywhere else in the nation. Two-time killer Gary Gilmore chose the firing squad in 1977, and while he was the last (so far, at least) to die that way, the choice remains.

Newly-devout Arthur Bishop, however, stood fast on his choice of lethal injection.

Bishop met with his parents for the last time on June 8, 1988, then spent his last hours in fasting and prayer. "It's unbelievable how calm and cool he is," Mormon bishop Heber Geurts told newsman Robert Mims. "Even the guards can't understand it. I've dealt with thousands of inmates in 33 years, and he's the most sorrowful and repentant and remorseful man I've ever seen."

Lethal injection table, Utah (AP/Wide World)

Bishop kept his date with the needle on June 10, and state officials afterward cited statistics to "prove" that his death had reduced Utah's murder rate. As later reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, the state witnessed 26 murders in the six months before Bishop's execution, but only 21 from July through December, "a 19 percent difference." Similar marginal declines had been noted after the 1977 execution of Gary Gilmore and Pierre Selby's in 1987, but critics of capital punishment shrugged it off as meaningless coincidence.

Utah was grateful, though. Prison employees called upon to take a hand in Bishop's execution were afterward given "thank-you" lapel pins to commemorate their service above and beyond the call of duty.