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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A federal court has rejected an appeal from Utah death row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner.
In a decision released Friday, the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2007 ruling by a U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell that rejected numerous claims, including that Gardner had ineffective attorneys during both his trial and appeal.
Assistant Utah Attorney General Thomas Brunker said he was pleased with the ruling.
Gardner's Ketchum, Idaho-based attorney Andrews Parnes said they are disappointed with the court's decision and plans to appeal. Court rules give Parnes 14 days to file an appeal.
Parnes said he plans to ask for a rehearing of the case by the original three-judge panel that heard arguments in February and a hearing before a the court's full panel of 12 active judges.
Gardner, 48, was sentenced to death for the Salt Lake City courthouse killing of attorney Michael Burdell in 1985 when Gardner was in court for a hearing on charges in the 1984 robbery and fatal shooting of another man.
Authorities say Gardner's girlfriend smuggled a loaded gun into the courthouse, and he opened fire with it in a failed escape attempt.
Gardner has already exhausted the appeals process in Utah's state court system, Parnes said.
Gardner is one of 10 men on Utah's death row.
Six men have been executed, either by lethal injection or firing squad since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1972. The last person executed in Utah was Joseph Mitchell Parsons, who died by lethal injection on Oct. 15, 1999.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
