Deborah Denno comments to USA Today on Utah’s use of a firing squad for an execution in June 2010, the state’s first in more than 10 years and the first by firearms since 1996.
“Utah is to be commended for allowing the firing squad even though there have been very few such executions in this country. While the firing squad has not been systematically evaluated and the method has always carried with it the baggage of its brutal image and roots, evidence suggests that it may well be the most humane of all execution methods, including lethal injection, which is now used almost exclusively. Ironically, then, lethal injection, which has the veneer of medical acceptability, has far greater risks of cruelty to a condemned person than the firing squad, which has the aura of the wild west.”
Read the entire USA Today story.