A double murderer in Utah was executed by firing team early on Friday after one last court plea that was made could not get success.

The convicted murderer, Ronnie Lee Gardner, who had spent approximately 25 years on death row, was stated dead after four bullets, as there were five rifles in the firing group, but one had been loaded with blanks tore through the aimed pin to his chest.

Mr. Gardner, 49, was hooded and tied to the execution chair inside the Utah State Prison that is near Salt Lake City, and had spent his concluding hours of life watching The Lord of the Rings movies in the observatory cell, according to the Utah Department of Corrections.

It was the third firing squad execution in the United States, all of them in Utah, which is the only state vigorously practicing that form of punishment ever since the year 1976, when the death punishment was reinstated by the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Gardner had been arrested in 1985 on the charges of murdering a lawyer, Michael J. Burdell, in a failed escape attempt during a court appearance for a previous murder.

His attorneys, in their plea, argued that the panel of jury did not hear to sufficient evidence about the years of abuse he had to suffer, when he was a child.