Idaho lawmakers passed a bill this week seeking to add the state to the list of those authorising firing squads. Fresh interest comes as states scramble for alternatives to lethal injections after pharmaceuticals barred the use of their drugs
The image of gunmen in a row firing in unison into the chest of a condemned prisoner may conjure up a bygone, less enlightened era. Idaho lawmakers passed a bill this week seeking to add the state to the list of those authorizing firing squads, currently Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Fresh interest comes as states scramble for alternatives to lethal injections after pharmaceuticals barred the use of their drugs.
‘There can be about 10 seconds of extreme pain before death at times, but I find it to be, in my personal view, more humane than lethal injection,’ lawmaker says