Tales of the Firing Squad

In Utah one day in 1912, a convicted murderer named J. J. Morris was told he must choose how to die: he could be executed by firing squad, the officers told him, or he could swing by the noose. "Which will cost the State of Utah more?" asked the murderer. "Hanging," came the sepulchral reply. "Hang me," cried J. J. Morris. "I want the best Utah's got."

In Utah one day last week, another brave-talking killer named Don Jesse Neal was led out from Utah State Prison at sunrise to take the second best that Utah could give. He was strapped into a wooden office chair that bore 17 notches to signify that 17 other men had been shot in it.* "Do I have to wear this thing? I have nothing to be ashamed of," said Don Jesse Neal as officers fitted a black hood over his head, a 2-in., heart-shaped black target to his white shirt. "I am innocent; I have no malice against anyone," were Don Jesse Neal's last words as five .30-.30 rifles (one loaded with a blank cartridge) poked through five holes in a burlap screen 25 ft. away. "Ready!" said the officer in charge to his men as the sun edged red above the rugged Wasatch mountains; then, seconds later, softly, so that the man in the chair would not hear him, "Fire!"

Utah is the only state in the Union that still executes by firing squad--a hangover from the wild, woolly days when there was no place for executions like the nearest field. Utah is also the only state in the Union that gives its murderers a say in the way they die.

Since 1855, when two Indians were hanged for killing the two sons of a Mormon bishop. 38 men have been executed in the Territory and State of Utah, and all were given Utah's deathly choice. J. J. Morris was the fifth and last murderer to choose death by the noose; all the rest have been shot.

Every now and then, the Utah state legislature gets around to discussing whether the firing squad is backward and barbaric; the new state prison, erected in 1950, laid aside space that could do equally well for high voltage or for gas. In its 1955 session, the legislature passed a bill to install an electric chair and use it, but somewhere along the line the lawmakers balked at providing the appropriation. So, Don Jesse Neal was given his choice--but he added his own unique contribution to Utah firing-squad lore by firmly declining to choose. "There'll be no execution," he said confidently, protesting his innocence--but there was.

*The most celebrated of Neal's predecessors was Joe Hillstrom, writer of ballads and doughty organizer of Utah copper unions for the I.W.W. before World War I. Joe Hillstrom was convicted of murdering a grocer in a holdup, but the comrades of his union insisted to the end that he was framed.

Twenty-two months later, Joe Hillstrom was taken out like Don Jesse Neal, and the firing squad's bullets were plugged into the target over his heart--and a ballad was born that has warmed the hearts of millions of union men:

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night

Alive as you and me.

Says I, "But Joe you're ten years dead,"

"I never died," says he.

"I never died," says he . . .

"The copper bosses killed you, Joe,

They shot you, Joe," says I.

"Takes more than guns to kill a man,"

Says Joe, "I didn't die."

Says Joe, "I didn't die."

And standing there as big as life

and smiling with his eyes,

Joe says, "What they forgot to kill

Went on to organize,

Went on to organize."

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