Members of Utah’s Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee want to resurrect firing squads and use them as a secondary means of execution, which the state can fall back on when lethal injections are not possible.
Utah currently faces a shortage of the drug “cocktail” used in a lethal injection.
The Salt Lake Tribune quotes Utah state representative Paul Ray (R-Clearfield) saying this shortage is due to the fact that “the European company that makes this [drug cocktail] is refusing to sell it to the United States because they’re opposed to the death penalty.” He wants to bring back firing squads to prevent the state from being left in the lurch in the event that an execution is scheduled and lethal injection drugs cannot be found.
Ray described firing squads as “one of the most humane ways to execute someone because it’s so quick, and quite honestly, one of the most painless ways.” He said you see far less “struggling” from the person being executed compared to what you see with lethal injection.
The bill to resurrect firing squads is headed to the 2015 Utah Legislative General Session in January.
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