University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor Paul Cassell was interviewed in the REELZ documentary, “Dead Man Talking: The Execution of Gary Gilmore.” The documentary aired Jan. 15, two days before the 40th anniversary of his execution.
The Salt Lake Tribune covered the documentary with the following story, “40th anniversary: Gary Gilmore’s death a milestone in nation’s capital punishment saga.”
“The way he got to the front of the line — there were obviously many more people who committed murders in states that had state-of-the-art death penalty statutes,” said Paul G. Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah, who was interviewed for the documentary. “He was a volunteer, which meant they didn’t have the full appellate delays.”
Cassell says Gilmore’s case has persisted, in part, because he was the first person executed after the U.S. Supreme Court ended its own ban on executions in 1976.