After a high-profile botched lethal injection in Oklahoma caused state officials to suspend other scheduled executions from moving forward, a Utah lawmaker has proposed a new solution in his state: death by firing squad. Republican Rep. Paul Ray said that he will attempt to bring back the now-banned method of execution (which was used as recently as 2010 in Utah), which involves five police officers shooting a tied-up inmate with rifles.
Now that the drugs used for lethal injections are becoming increasingly difficult for states to acquire—leading to the use of untested cocktails of execution chemicals—Ray has argued that a firing squad is “probably the most humane way to kill somebody.” He also noted how cheap the solution would be. Critics of firing squads, like Richard Dieter, the executive director at the Death Penalty Information Center, have noted that if the prisoner moves during the process, more shots could be required, prolonging the execution process. Ray has said that he will bring the proposal before fellow legislators in January …
