Friday Execution In Utah May Be Last By Firing Squad

SALT LAKE CITY — If all goes according to plan, on Friday John Albert Taylor will eat a pizza, smoke a cigarette and then be strapped into a chair and shot in the heart for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Charla King in 1989. But if a bill to be introduced this month in the Utah Legislature becomes law, Taylor, 36, may be the last person executed by firing squad in the United States. A warehouse at Utah State Prison is being outfitted with one-way mirrors, plywood partitions with gun ports and a wooden armchair in preparation for Friday's scheduled execution in the only state that allows condemned inmates to choose between a firing squad and lethal injection.