Firing squad readies for round in state senate

Firing squad readies for round in state senate

(Chelsey Allder/Deseret News)


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SALT LAKE CITY — A bill to restore Utah’s firing squad as a death penalty option barely cleared the state House, and not without lots of emotion.

Now, HB11 is making its way into the state Senate for consideration, where emotions could rise again.

“Nobody wants to put somebody to death, period," said Rep. Paul Ray, the Clearfield Republican sponsoring the bill. "The only thing is, the law calls for it.”

For now.

Ray wants a "Plan B" in case the Utah Department of Corrections must stop lethal injections.

“We already have it for if it’s unconstitutional, so it’s not a big leap to say, 'or if the drugs are not available,'” Ray said.

The state prison doesn’t stock the lethal drugs because they have a low shelf life, a spokeswoman said.

Last year, death row inmates in four other states died slowly when the lethal cocktails didn’t work properly.

Even so, “(A firing squad) is a particularly graphic way of killing a person, and it makes us as a state look terrible in the eyes of our sister states,” said Utah House Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake City.

Related:

King has disgust for any form of the death penalty, let alone the firing squad. “The state medical examiner classifies death by firing squad, or lethal injection, as homicide,” he said.

HB 11 passed with just over half the support of the house, 39-34, and two abstentions, on Feb. 13, with 22 Republicans objecting.

That’s a red flag to the ACLU of Utah.

“You just missed the opportunity to have a good dialogue about continually looking for ways for the government to kill people," said Anna Brower, the ACLU's public policy advocate.

She wishes Utah would give up the death penalty altogether, saying it "is always a costly, lengthy legal battle because killing an innocent person is a mistake the government can’t take back.”

But Ray said Utah doesn’t have that problem.


The death penalty is always a costly, lengthy legal battle because killing an innocent person is a mistake the government can't take back.

–Anna Brower, the ACLU's Public Policy Advocate


“We’ve never had an appeal on a death row inmate in Utah because of their innocence," he said. "They’ve all been technical appeals.”

“People are comparing (the death penalty) to what’s going on with ISIS, and all the bad things that are happening over there,” said Senate Majority Leader Ralph Okerlund, R-Beaver.

He hasn’t made up his mind about how he'll vote.

“Oftentimes, you’ll find that your opinions can be swayed," Okerlund said. "And so, I’m looking forward to the discussion like everyone else.”

Eight inmates sit on Utah’s death row. Three of them elected death by firing squad before the Legislature abolished it in 2004.

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