Deborah Denno comments to My Fox Memphis about the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision to stay two executions in order to determine the qualifications of people tasked with judging whether an inmate is medically sound for execution.
Fordham Law School Professor Deborah W. Denno, who has studied the death penalty for the last 20 years, questioned who would be the expert in humane lethal injection executions. “It’s not like there’s really a group of doctors ready to do this,” she said.
She argues based on her research that firing squads are the most humane method of execution. There have been three such executions in the United States since 1976.
“It’s the only method that is actually carried out by a trained professional,” she said. “This is the irony of the death penalty in this country. People think a firing squad is too barbaric. They think it’s too Wild West.”
This story aired on My Fox Memphis on December 6, 2010.