Death by firing squad has a long history in the United States—and has historically been more closely associated with the military than with civilian prisoners—according to Fordham Law Professor Deborah Denno, death penalty expert and founding director of Fordham Law’s Neuroscience and Law Center, in this New York Times article.
Historical data suggests that at least 144 American inmates have been executed by shooting since 1608, though it is not clear how many involved firing squads. Of those, 40 were in Utah — more than any other state.
A sort of automated firing squad was used to kill a prisoner in Nevada more than a century ago, said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University: In the execution of Andriza Mircovich in 1913, three rifles were fired simultaneously by a mechanism, so that no one had to pull a trigger.
Professor Denno has argued that firing squads are more humane than other methods of execution, in part because they are harder to botch than, say, lethal injections. But the practice has historically been more closely associated with the military than with civilian prisoners.
“I think it looks barbaric to people because it’s associated with our country’s history,” Professor Denno said. “It’s associated with military executions. It’s associated with wartime.”
Read “U.S. Firing Squad Executions Are Rare, but Their History Is Long” in The New York Times.