Utah To Allow Firing Squads for Executions - East Idaho News
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Utah To Allow Firing Squads for Executions

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thinkstock 3.23.15 utahstatehouse?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1427161202057AndreyKrav/iStock/Thinkstock(SALT LAKE CITY) — Utah has officially become the only state in the country to allow firing squads for executions.  

The state’s Republican Governor, Gary Herbert, signed it into law on Monday.

Herbert admitted he finds the use of a firing squad “a bit gruesome,” but Utah is a capital punishment state. Herbert said it needs a backup execution method in case a shortage of lethal injection drugs continues.  

Condemned inmates in Utah had the choice of death by firing squad until 2004, until lawmakers banned it, saying it attracted too much media attention.

The last inmate to die by firing squad in Utah was in 2010. He was sentenced before the practice was outlawed, so he still got the choice.


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