"Panel endorses firing squad for capital cases," is the AP report, via the Star-Herald.
The Wyoming Department of Corrections should be able to employ a firing squad to execute condemned inmates if the state can't find the drugs to carry out lethal injections, a legislative committee voted Friday.
Meeting in Laramie, the interim Joint Judiciary Committee advanced a firing-squad bill for the full Legislature to consider when it convenes early next year. The committee rejected another bill that would have called for the state to repeal the death penalty altogether.
Steve Lindly, deputy director of the Wyoming Department of Corrections, told lawmakers that states across the country are finding it increasingly difficult to find drugs to carry out lethal-injection executions. Current Wyoming law sets the gas chamber as the state's fallback position only if the courts found lethal injection unconstitutional. But the law doesn't address what to do if the necessary drugs are simply unavailable. The state doesn't have a gas chamber.
Earlier coverage from Wyoming begins at the link. Related posts are in the firing squad category index.
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