Gas chamber, firing squad and the electric chair have all been up for consideration in the wake of a European-led boycott of lethal injection drugs
On Monday night, Utah’s governor signed into law a bill that makes Utah the only state in the union to allow the firing squad as a method of executing condemned inmates.
One other state, Oklahoma, allows for death by firing squad but only if the lethal injection process is ruled unconstitutional by a court.
Related: Arizona woman cleared after 22 years on death row: 'This is not happiness'
Denno has studied the history of the firing squad in the US, and found that in most of the cases in which it was used it was relatively quick and effective. In 1938, a “human experimentation” was carried out on a 42-year-old inmate who was executed by firing squad, with his heart monitored using electrocardiograph tracing. The results showed that his heart was electrically “silent” within a matter of 20 seconds.
The only known case of a botched execution by firing squad, in 1951 in Utah, appears to have been an act of vengeance on the part of five trained marksmen pulling the trigger. They targeted the wrong side of the prisoner’s chest, apparently intentionally, and he bled to death.
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