Wyoming Lawmakers Mull Death Penalty Ruling - East Idaho News
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Wyoming Lawmakers Mull Death Penalty Ruling

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firing squad

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – A Wyoming lawmaker says he still intends to push a bill to allow the use of firing squads to execute condemned inmates even though there’s no one on death row.

Sheridan Republican Sen. Bruce Burns is the outgoing chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He’s pushing a bill to allow execution by firing squad in response to recent national shortages of lethal injection drugs.

The Legislature starts next month.

U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne last month overturned the death sentence for Dale Wayne Eaton, Wyoming’s only death row inmate.

The 69-year-old Eaton was convicted of the 1988 murder of 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell of Billings, Montana. He remains in prison.

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office hasn’t decided whether to appeal Johnson’s ruling.

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