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The firing squad option as a means of carrying out capital punishment in Utah should be abandoned. It will be if lawmakers approve proposed legislation to make lethal injection the sole method of execution in the Beehive State.
As it now stands, those convicted of murder and sentenced to death are given the option of choosing between lethal injection and the firing squad. Why should anyone guilty of such a terrible crime get to choose anything, especially when it empowers the condemned individual to grandstand? No other state in the nation allows inmates to choose execution by firing squad.
Because it is so rare, Utah executions attract inordinate media attention. The last such execution in 1996 became a veritable media circus with more than 150 televisions crews from countries throughout the world. Tragically, coverage tends to shift away from the criminal and the crime – and especially the victims - to the method of execution. Such spectacles are unnecessary and unwanted. It is why the Utah Legislature should make short work of enacting the proposed legislation.
KSL joins the chorus of individuals and organizations who support elimination of the firing squad.
