Are firing squads making a comeback in the United States?

In the US state of Idaho, the legislature passed a bill that would require the use of firing squads in the execution of death sentences in the state.

According to the news reported by Voice of America, with this decision, after Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina, Idaho gave the green light to execution squads that have not been used for years in the country.

Behind this decision is the prohibition of the use of drugs produced by some pharmaceutical companies in the execution of death sentences. For this reason, while states resorted to alternative options to lethal injection in the execution of executions, firing squads once again took center stage.

WITHOUT APPLYING FOR 13 YEARS

The last time the firing squad was used in the United States was in 2010.

Ronnie Lee Gardner, sentenced to death for murdering a lawyer, was executed in 2010 at the Utah State Penitentiary. Sitting in a chair, surrounded by sandbags, Gardner had a goal set on his heart. Five corrections officers, chosen by lottery from a group of volunteers, had fired at Gardner with rifles from 8 meters away. Two minutes later, Gardner was pronounced dead.

Ronnie Lee Gardner was the last death row inmate to be killed by firing squad in the United States.

A MORE HUMANE METHOD THAN A POISONOUS NEEDLE?

Some, including Constitutional Court judges, argue that firing squads may be more merciful than lethal injection, despite the violent prospect of shooting a human body with bullets.

According to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, Utah is the only state that has used a firing squad for the past 50 years.

Under the bill passed in the state of Idaho, firing squads can only be used if the supply of drugs used in lethal injection is not possible.

ELECTRIC CHAIR AND GAS ROOM ALSO ON THE AGENDA

Some states are reapproving or planning to approve the use of the electric chair and gas chamber.

Austin Sarat, a professor of political science and law at Amherst College, studied 8,776 death sentences carried out in the United States between 1890 and 2010 and found that 276 of them, or 3.15 percent, were problematic. According to Sarat’s study, problems occurred in 7.12 percent of lethal injections, 3.12 percent of executions by hanging, and 1.92 percent of executions by electric chair. In fact, in 2014, Oklahoma convict Clayton Locket began having seizures and clenching his teeth after intravenous administration of midazolam.

Calling for the abolition of the death penalty, Sarat points out that, compared to these, none of the 34 executions by firing squad have been a problem.

Firing squads were never used as the primary method of carrying out death sentences against civilians. This method was a method used especially in the execution of those who had deserted from military service during the United States Civil War.