Deborah Denno comments to the Kansas City Star on humane executions.
Some death-penalty experts, both pro and con, even argue that the firing squad’s bullet to the heart is as quick and pain-free as any other killing method.
“Any manner of killing someone,” Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University in New York, “is going to involve some kind of pain.”
While Denno opposes the death penalty and Blecker advocates it, the two professors share the belief that there is a feasible alternative.
The state of Utah has carried out three executions by firing squad since 1977, most recently in 2010, and Denno said in none of those cases was any undue suffering reported.
“It’s probably as painless a method as we have,” she said.
Denno also sees it as a more honest approach to carrying out a death sentence.
“You can’t have it both ways,” she said. “You can’t execute people while pretending that they’re just falling asleep.”
The entire Kansas City Star story appeared on August 20, 2012.