"Wyoming lawmakers mull firing squad for executions," is the AP report, via the Washington Post. It's also available from CBS News.
Prompted by the shortages of available drugs for lethal injections, Wyoming lawmakers are considering changing state law to permit the execution of condemned inmates by firing squad.
A Wyoming legislative committee has directed its staff to draft a firing-squad bill for consideration ahead of next year's legislative session starting in January.
Lawmakers in Utah also may consider a return to firing squads for civilian executions. A Republican state lawmaker there recently announced that he intends to introduce firing-squad legislation in his state's next legislative session in January as well.
Utah outlawed execution by firing squad in 2004 but kept it as an option for inmates convicted before that time. It last executed an inmate by firing squad in 2010.
Bob Lampert, director of the Wyoming Department of Corrections, told members of the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Interim Judiciary Committee last week in Rawlins that drugs for lethal injection have become increasingly difficult to obtain.
“In the event that we had an execution scheduled and we couldn’t carry it out as a result of lack of substances, I suggested to the Joint Judiciary that we may want to consider having an alternate means of execution, such as the firing squad,” Lampert said Wednesday.
Current state law specifies Wyoming would execute condemned inmates in a gas chamber, which the state doesn’t currently have, as a backup to lethal injection only if lethal injection were found to be unconstitutional. Existing state law doesn’t address how the state should proceed in response to a drug shortage.
The ABA Journal posts, "Bill to allow firing-squad executions is being drafted in state with just one death-row inmate," by Debra Cassens Weiss.
Currently the state has no execution drugs, corrections director Bob Lampert said.
And:
Lawmakers in Utah and Wyoming had floated the idea of firing squads earlier this year, but those efforts had stalled. Now the states are reconsidering the proposal after the botched lethal-injection execution in Oklahoma, AP says.
Earlier coverage from Wyoming begins at the link. Related posts are in the firing squad category index.
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