The US has carried out its first execution by firing squad in 14 years. Convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner, who had spent 25 years on death row, was killed on Friday morning, hours after a final appeal was rejected. Gardner, 49, chose the firing squad as his method of execution before it was banned by Utah in 2004. He was only the third man put to death in that way in the US since 1976. He was convicted in 1985 of fatally shooting a lawyer during an attempt to escape from a court where he was facing another murder charge dating from 1984.