Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — The emotional discussion over capital punishment is once again taking center stage in Utah.
And the two opposing sides couldn't be farther apart on the issue.
“Personally, I support the death penalty and I would not vote to do away with it,” Representative Paul Ray said.
But Jean Hill, government liaison for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, opposes capital punishment and called it “morally reprehensible.”
For five of the eight inmates on death row right now, and assigned lethal injection, one lawmaker is floating the firing squad as a secondary method of death. The three others selected the firing squad as their No. 1 pick prior to 2004, when the law changed.
To Ray, it's a backup plan in the event one of a legal snag, if chemicals aren't available or something goes terribly wrong — as it did in Oklahoma.
“We have the facilities, we have the expertise in doing it, so it's an easy transition to move from lethal injection over to the firing squad,” he said.
Utah's last lethal injection execution was in 1999. The state doesn't have any of the lethal drugs on hand.
Expensive and with a limited shelf life, they're also more difficult to get since some European suppliers are refusing to sell them.
Hill says all this should be considered a sign: To re-think capital punishment.
“The lesson from Oklahoma isn't 'well let’s find a better way to execute people.' It is 'let's talk about why are we even bothering with execution at this point,'" she said.
Other states do have secondary methods. In Washington, hanging is still on the books, and Tennessee recently reinstated the electric chair after what happened in Oklahoma.
