Utah could return to firing squads

SALT LAKE CITY — In the wake of a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma last month, a Utah legislator says he thinks a firing squad is a morehumane form of execution. And he plans to bring back that option for criminals sentenced to death in his state.

Rep. Paul Ray, a Republican from the northern city of Clearfield, plans to introduce his proposal during Utah’s next legislative session in January.

Legislators in Wyoming and Missouri floated similar ideas this year, but both efforts stalled.

Ray, however, might succeed. Utah already has a tradition of execution by firing squad; five police officers used .30-caliber Winchester rifles to execute Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010, the last execution by rifle in the state.

Ray argues that the method might seem more palatable now, especially as states struggle to maneuver through lawsuits and drug shortages that have complicated lethal injections.

“It sounds like the Wild West, but it’s probably the most-humane way to kill somebody,” Ray said.

Utah eliminated execution by firing squad in 2004, citing the excessive media attention it gave inmates. But those sentenced to death before that date still had the option of choosing it, which is how Gardner ended up standing in front of the officers.

Gardner had been sentenced to death for fatally shooting a Salt Lake City lawyer in 1985 while trying to escape from a courthouse.

He was the third person to die by firing squad since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

A few other Death Row inmates in Utah have opted to die by gunfire rather than lethal injection, but they are several years from exhausting the appeals of their death sentences, Assistant Utah Attorney General Thomas Brunker said.

Ray’s proposal would give all inmates the option.