BBC<\/a>\u00a0(video available from there):<\/p>\nUtah will resume the use of firing squads to carry out the death penalty when lethal injections drugs are not available.<\/p>\n
Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed the measure into law on Monday.<\/p>\n
The move makes Utah the only US state to use firing squads as a method of execution.<\/p>\n
Some US states are considering alternative execution methods as they struggle to obtain lethal injection drugs amid a nationwide shortage.<\/p>\n
Drug inventories dwindled after European manufacturers opposed to capital punishment refused to sell the lethal concoctions.<\/p>\n
Civil rights groups have said use of firing squads makes Utah “look backward and backwoods”.<\/p>\n
Governor Herbert finds the firing squad “a little bit gruesome,” but said the state needs a back-up execution method.<\/p>\n
“We prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection when such a sentence is issued,” the governor’s spokesman Marty Carpenter told the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
“However, when a jury makes the decision and a judge signs a death warrant, enforcing that lawful decision is the obligation of the executive branch.”<\/p>\n
Last execution<\/h2>\n
It will probably be years before Utah’s next execution. The head of Utah’s prison system has said the state does not have any reserves of lethal injection drugs.<\/p>\n
The new Utah law reinstates the use of firing squads more than a decade after the state abandoned the practice.<\/p>\n
Because of the intense media attention, Utah lawmakers stopped offering inmates the choice of a death by firing squad several years ago.<\/p>\n
But a handful of inmates sentenced to death before 2004 still have the option of going before a firing squad.<\/p>\n
Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer who shot and killed a lawyer in attempt to escape from prison, was the last inmate executed by a firing squad in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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