On January 17, 1977, Gary Gilmore became the first prisoner executed in the United States following the reinstatement of the death penalty. Gilmore had committed two murders in 1976, first a petrol station worker and then a hotel manager, both occurring after the victims had cooperated with robberies.
Gilmore was apprehended shortly after accidentally shooting himself in the hand while attempting to discard the murder weapon. His trial in October lasted two days, with the jury reaching a verdict in a few hours.
Unusually, Gilmore actively opposed efforts to prevent his execution, stating his desire for anti-death penalty activists to "butt out." He also fought against his mother's lawsuit seeking a stay of execution, affirming, "This is my life and this is my death. It's been sanctioned by the courts that I die and I accept that." His last words before being executed by firing squad were: "Let's do it." Utah law stipulated that one member of the five-person firing squad would unknowingly fire a blank, though his brother later observed five bullet holes in Gilmore's shirt.
Five years prior, in 1972, the United States Supreme Court had imposed a moratorium on the death penalty. This decision followed a 1968 case where an "emotionally disturbed and mentally impaired" man was sentenced to death after a one-day trial. The moratorium resulted in over 600 death row inmates, including Robert F. Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan and members of the Manson family, having their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The death penalty was later reinstated after individual U.S. states revised their laws to meet more specific criteria.