Just like the good old days
State Rep. Paul Ray and state Sen. David Hinkins'
Death Penalty Procedure Amendments bill has passed through the state Senate.
This bill:
provides that if substances are not available to carry out the death penalty by lethal injection on the date specified by warrant, the death penalty shall be carried out by firing squad.
[bold is me raising my voice while reading that last line]
The next step is for Governor Gary R. Herbert, who has not said whether or not he will sign or veto the law.
A spokeswoman said that there was currently no timeframe for when he might review the final bill and decide on a course of action.
If you don't know, Utah, as with many states, have been having a terrible time finding good killing drugs for their executions.
States with lethal injection have been struggling to obtain the necessary drugs due to a drug shortage, which has prompted responses in states that carry out many executions as well as those that almost never put inmates to death. Texas, the country’s most active death-penalty state, is scheduled to run out of lethal injection drugs next week, and officials are not sure what they will do for the five executions scheduled to take place over the weeks that follow. Meanwhile, lawmakers in Wyoming, which has carried out just one execution over the last four decades, have considered allowing the use of firing squads.
Utah is just following in the footsteps of other humanitarians like
Wyoming. This all comes on the heels of botched executions in
Arizona and
Oklahoma.