Shooting may be an option if a lethal injection is not available.
20.3. 23:37
Idaho In a state in the northwestern United States, inmates on death row may be executed by firing squad in the future if the local governor gives the proposal his blessing.
The news agencies AP and AFP report on the matter, among others.
Shooting may be an option if a lethal injection is not available. The bill passed the state legislature on Monday and still requires a Republican governor by Brad Little the signature.
Execution by firing squad is allowed in only four other states: Utah, Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Carolina. However, since 1976, only two people have been executed by firing squad in the United States, both in Utah.
For the killers alternatives to injections are being sought, as states that allow the death penalty have recently had great difficulty getting their hands on the ingredients for the poison. According to AFP, the background is at least partly the reluctance of drug companies that oppose the death penalty to provide ingredients.
The execution method also divides policymakers in Idaho, even though it is going through. Republican Dan Foreman said, according to AP, that the shooting would “traumatize the shooters, witnesses and the cleaners of the execution site”.
“I’ve seen the aftermath of a shooting, and it’s psychologically damaging to anyone who witnesses it. Execution by firing squad is below par in Idaho,” Foreman said.
Representing the same party Doug Ricks on the other hand, sees shooting as humane.
“This is a rule of law issue: our system should work and punishments should be completed,” Ricks defended the reform.
Idaho’s law reform is partly driven by a prisoner Gerald Pizzuto Jr case. In 1985, Pizzuto was sentenced to death for two murders. However, his execution has been postponed numerous times due to medical problems. Pizzuto was scheduled to be executed on March 23, but that too was postponed to March 10, as the ingredients for the lethal injection were not available.
United States is the only western country where the death penalty is still in use. About half of the states allow the death penalty.
Read more: They’re All Awaiting Their Deaths in Texas’ Death Row – Professor Explains Supreme Court’s ‘Dramatic Change’ That Few Have Noticed
More than 1,500 people have been executed in the country since 1976. The statistics start from that year, because in 1972 a legal case heard by the Supreme Court suspended the death penalty in the whole country. They were introduced again in 1976.
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