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Some US States to bring back Firing Squads for Death Penalty

Mr_Red

Two more American states are taking concrete steps towards restoring the firing squad for executions in response to shortages of drugs for lethal injection.

The botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate last month using a previously untried drug cocktail has prompted intense debate about how states carry out the death penalty.

Now state representatives in Wyoming have directed officials to draft a firing-squad bill to be brought before the next legislative session.

And in neighbouring Utah, a Republican senator said that he will introduce firing-squad legislation at the next session too. The state outlawed execution by firing squad for inmates condemned to death in 2004, although kept it as an option for convicts sentenced before that year.

The firing squad was once a common method of execution in the US. But just three prisoners have been executed by that manner in America since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 and the firing squad is only on the statute books as a back-up option in two states.

Several states are now taking a fresh look at firing squads as lethal injection has become increasingly difficult after European pharmaceutical companies stopped exporting drug compounds used for the death penalty.

Tennessee has already passed a measure to reintroduce the electric chair and Missouri is considering a proposal that would allow the use of both gas chambers and firing squads.

The impact of the drugs' shortage was horrifically illustrated last month in Oklahoma when Clayton Lockett, a convicted murderer, finally died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after officials started to administer an untried drug cocktail.

Death penalty opponents have argued that the restoration of the firing squad would breach the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment.

Irish Independent

While I dont like the idea of the Death Penalty, This must be a horrific way to die as it cant be sure you will instantly die.

Do they keep some extra bullets if the first shots are unsuccessful?

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Wazdakka

Meh...
The state executing somebody is the state executing somebody as far as I'm concerned. As long as there isn't a prolonged element of pain attached to the execution, then the method doesn't really matter..

Arthur Beesley

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

What's going on?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27534688

On 17 June 2010 his arms, legs and head were strapped to a metal chair and four bullets - from five sharpshooters, one whose gun was loaded with blanks - ripped through a target pinned over his heart.

No Pants

Still seems very waste to execute people one at a time. It would be more efficient to execute people in large groups.

wazky

No Pants wrote: »

Still seems very waste to execute people one at a time. It would be more efficient to execute people in large groups.

Fill up a bus load of them and drive to the nearest cliff

That would be cost effective now.

Duggy747

Death by RPG!

[Deleted User]

No Pants wrote: »

Still seems very waste to execute people one at a time. It would be more efficient to execute people in large groups.

Maybe get railway lines running into where it's done.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Arthur Beesley wrote: »

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27534688

4 different posters responded by saying 'I thought it was the other way round'. It kinda tripped me out. I'm still recovering from a heavy weekend.

seamus

So, concerned about the implications after an execution was botched, some states are planning to reintroduce even more fallible and torturous forms of the death penalty?

America gets weirder and weirder. Firing squad is fallible. Shot to the head or the heart, you leave wide open the potential for a death that is not instant but instead is painful and barbaric.

Don't even get me started on the electric chair.

Inert gas asphyxiation. You stick someone in a chamber and slowly replace the oxygen in the chamber with an inert gas like nitrogen. Because the gas is inert, it does not enter the bloodstream or otherwise cause any reaction in the body. The prisoner slowly becomes drowsy and a little high from lack of oxygen before falling unconscious. Leave them in the chamber for 2 hours. Provided that you ensure the oxygen level remains at zero, death is absolutely guaranteed.

osarusan

I'd guess that the people involved put effort into making blank bullets (was bullets in Utah's case) which replicate the feeling of a live round as closely as possible.

Otherwise, what's the point, at least in terms of the firing squad members themselves?

Wazdakka

No Pants wrote: »

Still seems very waste to execute people one at a time. It would be more efficient to execute people in large groups.

wazky wrote: »

Fill up a bus load of them and drive to the nearest cliff

That would be cost effective now.

Duggy747 wrote: »

Death by RPG!

Surely some form of Gas chamber would be more efficient for executing large number of people at once?

What??

neamhspleachi

Cheap, efficient & gets the job done

No Pants

Deleted User wrote: »

Maybe get railway lines running into where it's done.

I was thinking more along these lines:

Dig a big hole.
Put the inmates in the hole.
Fill in the hole.

catallus

Why so much misplaced compassion for a person who committed such a heinous crime that it merits the death penalty?

Amirani

No Pants wrote: »

I was thinking more along these lines:

Dig a big hole.

Put the inmates in the hole.

Fill in the hole.

Cover with lime? Hole can then be re-used. People clearly haven't visited enough Holocaust museums if they don't know all these simple tricks.

Amirani

catallus wrote: »

Why so much misplaced compassion for a person who committed such a heinous crime that it merits the death penalty?

Because most normal people have a natural feeling called empathy.

Most normal people also realise that state sanctioned murder is illogical, ineffective and expensive.

Barely There

catallus wrote: »

Why so much misplaced compassion for a person who committed such a heinous crime that it merits the death penalty?

Opposition to the death penalty has very little to do with a misplaced sense of compassion for criminals.

No Pants

Diego Simeone wrote: »

Cover with lime? Hole can then be re-used. People clearly haven't visited enough Holocaust museums if they don't know all these simple tricks.

I haven't visited any Holocaust museums, but that is a good trick.

Alternatively, tie them all together and put them in a river. Shoot one. That's the way the Turks did it.

LeinsterDub

Not a supporter of the Death Penalty at all but couldn't they fashion some sort of remotely fired machine multiple buttoned for this , instead of this blank nonsense?

catallus

Empathising with someone who committed a crime that gets them the death penalty is illogical and deeply immoral.

Ineffective and expensive? Only if it is done wrong.

Andy-Pandy

The French had it right. If it was me I would want the guillotine, fast and painless.

Maximus Alexander

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

The French had it right. If it was me I would want the guillotine, fast and painless.

How do you know it's painless? Be hard to do a survey on that surely?

LeinsterDub

catallus wrote: »

Empathising with someone who committed a crime that gets them the death penalty is illogical and deeply immoral.

Ineffective and expensive? Only if it is done wrong.

Actually the death penalty is super expensive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-6TJ3C_ytE

No Pants

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Actually the death penalty is super expensive

They must be doing something wrong if it's more expensive to kill someone than to keep them locked up for life.

Oink

seamus wrote: »

So, concerned about the implications after an execution was botched, some states are planning to reintroduce even more fallible and torturous forms of the death penalty?

America gets weirder and weirder. Firing squad is fallible. Shot to the head or the heart, you leave wide open the potential for a death that is not instant but instead is painful and barbaric.

Don't even get me started on the electric chair.

Exactly. Let's see: At one point they decided that firing squads and the electric chair were not acceptable for a number of reasons. Have all those reasons now disappeared because they're stuck?

Jagdtiger

wazky wrote: »

Fill up a bus load of them and drive to the nearest cliff

That would be cost effective now.

Think of the environmental impact tho...

Beano

No Pants wrote: »

They must be doing something wrong if it's more expensive to kill someone than to keep them locked up for life.

Most of the cost is due to the number of mandatory appeals that the convicted party must be allowed. Lawyers are not cheap

catallus

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Actually the death penalty is super expensive

From the video (2:10 onwards):

"The [excessive cost] comes primarily from reviewing over and over and over again the decision on the choice of punishment. And we simply don't need as many reviews as we have."

It is the appeals process that shoots up the cost. It is unnecessary and unjust. The same speaker said that even if the death penalty were not sought that Habeas Corpus petitions would still be brought. It is like a tribunal of enquiry for these scumbags; as usual the lawyers milk it to death.

Beano

Oink wrote: »

Exactly. Let's see: At one point they decided that firing squads and the electric chair were not acceptable for a number of reasons. Have all those reasons now disappeared because they're stuck?

they were replaced with a more humane method in lethal injection. that method is no longer available so the are switching back to the old ways.

Custardpi

Beano wrote: »

they were replaced with a more humane method in lethal injection. that method is no longer available so the are switching back to the old ways.

Except in many cases the lethal injection is probably less humane than other forms of execution. Unless you're properly trained in injections & the chemicals are both produced & adminstered correctly then what may happen is that the inmate will simply be paralysed & tortured to death over a much longer period than either electrocution or firing squad would be likely to take. Lethal injection was introduced to make the process of killing someone more palatable for those who watched, regardless of any pretence it was for the benefit of the executee.

Sinister Pigeon

Totally against death by shooting.
Stop killing pigeons people.