Shortage of lethal injection drugs said to be criteria behind bill
With frustrations mounting nationwide over recently botched executions and a worrisome shortage of lethal-injection drugs, a bill was passed in the Utah state Senate on Tuesday, March 10 that would allow Utah to use firing squads to execute certain death-row prisoners.
The bill, which passed 18 to 10, was sent to Utah Governor Gary Herbert, who as of press time has not indicated whether he will sign or veto the bill. Herbert’s decision is expected to be made sometime in the next few weeks. If signed into law, the bill would give the state of Utah the option to use a five-member firing squad in specific cases where the drugs necessary for lethal injection aren’t available 30 days before the marked date for execution.
While Utah banned death by firing squad in 2004, inmates who chose that option before the law changed were still executed by a five-member squad, making Utah the only state in the past 40 years to carry out such a death sentence.
The last execution by firing squad most famously took place in 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was put to death by a group of five police officers using .30-caliber Winchester rifles in an event that generated international headlines and much backlash nationwide. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) declared Gardner’s execution an example of the “barbaric, arbitrary, and bankrupting practice of capital punishment,” while religious leaders across Utah called for an end to the death penalty at a vigil held in Salt Lake City.
In recent years, the United States has struggled to maintain a “fitting” supply of lethal injection drugs compatible with their high rate of executions, as manufacturers have either stopped producing the drugs or barred their use in executions altogether. Just recently, the European manufacturers of pentobarbital – an anesthetic – banned U.S. prisons from using the drug for executions, which has caused some states to seek out more hazardous or unproven substitutes, such as prescribing one drug instead of the traditional three-drug cocktail.
The results have so far been troubling, with botched executions in recent months being directly tied to such methods. In April of 2014, Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett was administered a single dose of midazolam instead of the regularly used three-drug cocktail. It took 43 minutes for Lockett to die. More recently, in the first week of March 2015, an execution in the state of Georgia was postponed because the drugs appeared “cloudy” – a testament to the dangers that such a shortage is causing.
Outside of Utah, there are other states that allow the use of methods other than lethal injection for execution. In Washington, death by hanging can be requested by inmates, while in New Hampshire, whose state slogan is fittingly “Live Free or Die,” hangings are the default method of execution if lethal injection cannot be given. The state of Tennessee has just recently reinstated its electric chair, and in Oklahoma, lawmakers are discussing a plan to use nitrogen gas as a means for a quick execution.
For many people, this new bill is a representation of all that is wrong with the United States judicial system – and, perhaps even more disturbingly, the country’s obsession with violence and self-protection that has plagued the nation since the signing of the Constitution in 1787.
While it is for now unclear to which side of the debate Governor Herbert is leaning, what is clear is that his decision will more than likely have a great impact on the American justice system as it currently stands.