Chapter 37
GOING DOWN THE ROAD
1
Gordon Richards called Mike Deamer at 7:35 A.M. and said Denver had lifted Ritter’s Stay. Could they now go ahead with the execution? Deamer had a complete sense of surprise. He shouted into the phone, “They did?!” He was totally shocked.
Deamer had never expected it to happen that fast. He half thought it would be pushed off another thirty days, or if it did take place it would be much later in the morning. Near noon, say, there might be clear word. Now, however, he recovered quickly and told Richards the Warden could move. Richards, however, was troubled. He said the American Civil Liberties Union was trying an appeal to the Supreme Court. Should they wait on that? Deamer replied that the only lawful order in effect at present was Judge Bullock’s revised time of execution. He did not see any legal impediment to going ahead. They were not required by law to anticipate a Stay from any Court, including the Supreme Court. Deamer knew it was going to take at least half an hour to move Gilmore from Maximum Security over to the cannery. Since Denver had spoken, he saw no reason not to get started.
As soon as he and Richards were finished speaking, however, he did call the Tenth Circuit and spoke directly to Howard Phillips, asked him to verify the Court Order. Phillips read it aloud to him over the phone. Right after, a UPI reporter who had Deamer’s private office number rang up for an interview. Deamer said he would call back, but the reporter kept asking questions, not rude but persistent enough that, finally, to get off the phone, Deamer had to say, Yes, we’re going to execute him. Didn’t want to refuse the reporter entirely.
Around 7:55, Gordon Richards called again. Gilmore had now been moved to the execution area, and Sam Smith was ready to proceed. What did Deamer advise? Again, Mike was surprised at how fast everything was moving. He confirmed to Richards that he had heard nothing about any other Stays, and told Richards to go ahead. Call him as soon as it was over.
Deamer felt it was important that he take the responsibility. Gordon Richards was just a third-year law student. If he gave legal counsel to the prison, in something as big as this, it could prove a deterrent on his later ability to practice law. The State Bar Commission would never forgive a student for rendering advice. So Deamer was making it clear that he, Deamer, was the one saying, Execute Gilmore. If the ACLU later filed a Wrongful Death action, he would be the man who had taken the responsibility. Deamer could, of course, have tried to get in touch with Bob Hansen, but Bob and he thought very much alike on nearly all topics, and he was certain Bob would not say anything different than he had. So, he thought, let them sue us. They know where to find us.
Now, he could also have called Governor Matheson to ask if there was any change of mind in that quarter, but he had had a couple of conversations with the man already, and the Governor’s position was that he didn’t want to get involved. So why give him the opportunity now? For all he knew, Matheson was home in bed asleep. Deamer didn’t want to wake the Governor and have him sit there early in the morning and possibly get disturbed, and suddenly decide, Yeah, I’d better do something, and call the prison. He thought he’d just as soon keep the Governor out of it entirely.
All the while, Deamer was hoping that they would get it done close to 7:49. Bringing it in near to sunrise would make the problem cleaner. While Deamer was familiar with Earl Dorius’s argument that time meant day, he also thought there was a counterargument which would claim that there had to be some degree of specificity to an order. If the other side ever raised the issue that Judge Bullock’s new order had been obtained improperly because they never had a hearing on this point, Deamer didn’t see any reason to beef up their argument. The closer to sunrise that Gilmore was executed, the better. The law didn’t like to make too much out of too little. There would be less exposure to counterargument if they missed execution by a few minutes rather than a few hours.
After he told Gordon Richards to go ahead, however, he realized he was sitting at the desk with Gary Gilmore’s heart beating in his hands. It was a moment of truth, really. Deamer had been in the Army Reserve six years, with six months of active duty in artillery, but he had never been in combat. So he wondered now if his present feeling might be equal to the kind of emotion you might have if you were about to kill somebody right in your sights. He certainly had more of a mixed reaction than he expected. It was difficult, for instance, to stay in his seat after he hung up. Too quiet and lonely in the office. He’d worked all through the night, he told himself, was dead tired and felt awful grubby. He had a considerable growth of stubble and smelly socks. Not only tired but near used up. Sundays were a big demand. He was number-two man in Bob Hansen’s office and also second counselor to his Bishop. Church activities took twenty-five to forty hours a week except when legal duties like Gilmore consumed sixty to seventy. Even so, he had spent the whole of yesterday in church, and now all this last night working into Monday dawn. It came over him that even if he was in favor of capital punishment, he had been going through a long emotional drain. Somehow he had always expected to be the one to carry out the sentence. After all, he believed in it.
2
Deamer felt we were here on earth to be tested on whether we could live righteously. Repentance was the key. An individual had to make restitution in his lifetime for what he’d done wrong, except for those few crimes for which you could not obtain forgiveness in this life. One was murder. You could obtain forgiveness for murder, but not in this life. It had to come in the next. To repent, you had to allow your life to be taken. Deamer didn’t feel, therefore, that by giving the go-ahead, he was rendering null and void the existence of Gary Gilmore. Rather, he was enabling Gilmore to pass on to a spiritual sphere where at some point down the road of eternity, the man would obtain forgiveness for these murders.
Sitting in his office all alone, contemplating the scruffiness of his big body, Deamer might be bone tired, but in line with his goals and ambitions, he also felt that an individual occupying his position had to be able to make a decision and stand by it. So, while he waited following that last call from Gordon Richards, he said to himself, “Maybe I’ve been given this job for a reason. Maybe I’m the one who is able to handle it.” That was the kind of thought which occurred to him about everything he did. He liked to think he had been sent to earth as a person with a mission to do some good for the betterment of society. It was his hope he had been foreordained to be part of a larger plan.
Whenever Bob Hansen chose, therefore, not to run for Attorney General, Deamer was going to be ready. He had been active in Republican politics for years and he had his ambitions. Eventually, they would include being Governor. While the Church had a belief in free will, it did instruct that God has plans which are foreordained, and will happen, unless individuals fail to carry them out. If he, Deamer, ever became a government leader, then it was likely he had been foreordained to do so, and was truly carrying out the plan. It could even be part of his mission to take the weight of executing this individual today, a preparation for what might be a large weight of responsibility in the future.
3
In Washington, at the Supreme Court, Al Bronstein’s papers went in to Justice White about 9:40, which was 7:40 in Denver. In ten minutes the papers came back. Justice White had denied the application for a Stay. Bronstein was prepared. In a case involving a Circuit Court, you first had to appeal to the Supreme Court Justice directly over that Court, in this case, White. Now, he resubmitted the same application to Justice Marshall. It was sent back in a few minutes signed, “Application denied.”
Now, Bronstein asked it be given to Justice Brennan for submission to the entire Court. Michael Rodak went out with it, and a minute later, Francis Lorsen, the Deputy Chief Clerk, came back to tell Bronstein that the Supreme Court had been in the robing room, ready to start a regular session, but that they had turned back in order to consider Bronstein’s application. That was highly unusual. Five minutes later, Rodak handed Bronstein a short letter. It said that the full Supreme Court, through Chief Justice Burger, had denied the Stay at 10:03. It was now three minutes after eight in Utah, and every last legal resource had been used. Nothing could prevent the execution of Gary Gilmore.