Gary Gilmore | |
|---|---|
 Portland Police Bureau mugshots | |
| Born | Faye Robert Coffman December 4, 1940 McCamey, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | January 17, 1977 (aged 36) Utah State Prison, Draper, Utah, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Execution by firing squad |
| Criminal status | Executed |
| Parent(s) | Frank Gilmore Sr. (father) Bessie Gilmore (mother) |
| Relatives | Mikal Gilmore (brother) |
| Conviction(s) | First degree murder Armed robbery (3 counts) Assault (2 counts) |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Details | |
| Victims | Max Jensen Bennie Bushnell |
| Date | July 19 & 20, 1976 |
| State(s) | Utah |
| Location(s) | Orem Provo |
Date apprehended | July 21, 1976 |
Gary Mark Gilmore (born Faye Robert Coffman; December 4, 1940 – January 17, 1977) was an American 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 U.S. Supreme Court 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.[1] These new statutes avoided the problems under the 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia, which had resulted in earlier death penalty statutes being deemed "cruel and unusual" punishment, and therefore unconstitutional (The Supreme Court had previously ordered all states to commute death sentences to life imprisonment after Furman.). Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977.[2] His life and execution were the subject of the 1979 nonfiction novel The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer, and the 1982 TV film of the novel starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gilmore.
- ^ Hughes, Graham (28 June 1979). "License to Kill". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
- ^ "Death Watch in Salt Lake City". Time. 24 Jan 1977. Archived from the original on June 8, 2008. Retrieved 1 May 2013.