Firing Squad: Death Penalty Option Advances In Utah, But Under Specific Circumstances, Reports Say

The death penalty is one of the most contentious issues in America. The ideology tends to range from whether it is moral to whether the state has the right to put a person to death. The death penalty itself used to have a range of options as to how the state, or government, could put you to death.

The guillotine, hanging, and the firing squad are among the most known, but certainly not the only means in which the death penalty has been carried out. Surprisingly, the use of a firing squad to serve out a death penalty sentence still exists today.

After 2004, Oklahoma remained the lone state that still carried out the practice. However, one former death penalty by firing squad state is advancing legislation that will remove its ban on the practice. Utah banned death by firing squad in 2004, but was mulling it over earlier this year, according to the Inquisitr.

The New York Post reports that Utah is in fact pushing ahead with bringing back their death penalty option of a firing squad.

“After a 20-minute discussion, an interim panel of Utah lawmakers approved the idea on a 9-2 vote Wednesday. The proposal still needs to go through the full legislative process once lawmakers convene for their annual session in January.”

One Democrat and One Republican opposed the measure. Though their opinions on the death penalty itself differed, they both feel that there was no reason to advance such legislation. Currently, Utah does allow the death by firing squad for those sentenced prior to the 2004 ban on the practice.

Though Utah originally dropped the repeal due to media attention, Republican Rep. Paul Ray feels the reason to advance the measure would be if the state “cannot obtain the lethal injection drugs 30 days before the scheduled execution,” according to the Daily Mail. ABC News reports that Rep. Ray feels that there at least needs to be an option.

“We have to have an option. “If we go hanging, if we go to the guillotine, or we go to the firing squad, electric chair, you’re still going to have the same circus atmosphere behind it. So is it really going to matter?”

The New York Post reports that the move was spurned by the lack of availability of the three-drug cocktail they would normally use for a lethal injection form of death penalty. Though states have turned to other drugs to carry out death by lethal injection, they constantly face challenges in the courts.

Advocates for death by firing squad have suggested it is more humane because the death is much quicker. However, opponents suggest the opposite. Only one botched firing squad execution has been brought up by opponents that happened in 1879. Wallace Wilkerson took 27 minutes to die when the officers missed his heart.

The measure will be brought into a full session of Utah’s legislature in January, 2015. Death by firing squad, as a form of death penalty, was last used in 2010.

What are your thoughts on firing squad executions? Do you agree or disagree with the death penalty. Leave your thoughts and comments below.

[Image Via Wikimedia Commons]