“Utah was a long holdout in keeping the method, which it has used in 40 of its 49 executions in the last 160 years.”
Slackers. Texas does as much a year.
“”The firing squad is archaic, it’s violent, and it simply expands on the violence that we already experience from guns as a society,””
So is rape, stabbing, mutilating, shooting, among other things.
“He was convicted of capital murder 25 years ago for the 1985 fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during a botched escape attempt.”
Monster. He should have been shot at LEAST twenty years ago.
“legislators allowed previously convicted inmates to keep the firing-squad option out of fear that changing the execution method would create a new avenue of appeal.”
Smart people.
“DeLand planned three executions for the state of Utah, including one for Gardner in the 1990s that was delayed by a court order two days before the scheduled date.”
Pity the victims didn’t get a court order to prevent their deaths.
“The guns are handed out randomly to the officers. One will be loaded with a blank, so no one will know who fired the fatal shot. By law, the identities of those selected for the firing squad remain secret.”
Good idea, prevents the one police officer with the actual bullets from being singled out and provides a mental safety valve.
“The guns are handed out randomly to the officers. One will be loaded with a blank, so no one will know who fired the fatal shot. By law, the identities of those selected for the firing squad remain secret.”
Sounds good in theory, but I am fairly certain the person with the blank will notice a reduced recoil when he fires.
Not really, there is an obvious difference when you fire a blank compared to a real round. No recoil.
“Good idea, prevents the one police officer with the actual bullets from being singled out and provides a mental safety valve.”
The way it works is that there is only one officer out of the five who has a blank instead of an actual bullet. So, provided that all the marksmen aim correctly, the condemned prisoner should be struck by four bullets, but none of the marksmen will no which one of them fired a blank. For the each of the officers, this is supposed to provide some psychological relief in knowing that maybe he didn’t really fire a bullet killing the prisoner, so this should provide a mental safety valve as you mentioned.
I don’t know the yearly average, but the death penalty means something in Texas. This bishop and everyone else opposed to the death penalty are missing the point about capital punishment. It’s a punishment for a past crime, not a deterrent for a future one. I just wish these death penalty opponents stopped and thought about the brutal deaths the victims suffered as much as they do about the animals being put down by the state.