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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Utah to Use Firing Squads if Lethal Drugs Unavailable



    SALT LAKE CITY—
    Utah became the only state to allow firing squads for executions when Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law Monday approving the method for use when no lethal injection drugs are available, even though he has called it “a little bit gruesome.”

    The Republican governor has said Utah is a capital punishment state and needs a backup execution method in case a shortage of the drugs persists.

    “We regret anyone ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit the death penalty, and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection when such a sentence is issued,” Herbert spokesman Marty Carpenter said.

    However, enforcing death sentences is “the obligation of the executive branch.”

    The governor's office, in a statement announcing the new law, noted that other states allow execution methods other than lethal injection.

    In Washington state, inmates can request hanging. In New Hampshire, hangings are fallback if lethal injections can't be given. And an Oklahoma law would allow the state to use firing squads if lethal injections and electrocutions are ever declared unconstitutional.

    Utah's new approval of firing squads carries no such legal caveat and represents the latest example of frustration over botched executions and the difficulty of obtaining lethal injection drugs as manufacturers opposed to capital punishment have made them off-limits to prisons.

    The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield, argued that a team of trained marksmen is faster and more decent than the drawn-out deaths involved when lethal injections go awry - or even if they go as planned.

    Though Utah's next execution is probably a few years away, Ray said wants to settle on a backup method now so authorities are not racing to find a solution if the drug shortage drags on.

    Ray didn't return messages seeking comment Monday.

    Opponents of the measure say firing squads are barbaric, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah saying the bill makes the state “look backward and backwoods.”

    Utah lawmakers stopped offering inmates the choice of firing squad in 2004, saying the method attracted intense media interest and took attention away from victims.

    Utah is the only state in the past 40 years to carry out such a death sentence, with three executions by firing squad since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

    The last was in 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was put to death by five police officers with .30-caliber Winchester rifles in an event that generated international interest and elicited condemnation from many.

    Gardner killed a bartender and later shot a lawyer to death and wounded a bailiff during a 1985 courthouse escape attempt.

    The bailiff's widow, VelDean Kirk, who witnessed Gardner's execution, said she supports the new law.

    “I don't think it's barbaric,” she said. “I think that's the best way to do it.”

    Gardner's brother recently has spoken out against the method. Randy Gardner of Salt Lake City said Monday that he doesn't condone his brother's actions, but he opposes the death penalty and said firing squads make the state look bad.

    “My god, we're the only ones that are shooting people in the heart,” he said.

    One person nearing a possible execution date is Ron Lafferty, the state's longest-serving death row inmate, who claimed God directed him to kill his sister-in-law and her baby daughter in 1984 because of the victim's resistance to his beliefs in polygamy.

    Lafferty has already requested the firing squad - an option available to him even before this new law was passed because he, like Gardner, was convicted prior to 2004, when lawmakers stopped offering inmates the choice of firing squad.

    The other Utah death row inmate who could be next up for execution, Doug Carter, has chosen lethal injection. Under this new law, Carter would get the firing squad if the state can't get their hands on lethal injection drugs 30 days before.

    The state doesn't currently have lethal injection drugs on hand.

    Utah to Use Firing Squads if Lethal Drugs Unavailable

  2. #2
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    Savages. Plain and simple, just savages.

    Stupid,too.

  3. #3
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    Utah . . . speeding into the 18th century

  4. #4
    Lord of Swine
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    I don't understand why the execution states don't just use Nembutal and a helium bag.
    Can buy the stuff by the ton in china.

  5. #5
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  6. #6
    En route
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    I've never understood why, if they want to do it humanely, they just don't give them a massive overdose of heroin.
    Last edited by Cujo; 25-03-2015 at 06:57 PM.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by OckerRocker View Post
    Utah . . . speeding into the 18th century
    Mormon dominated.

    'enough said.

  8. #8
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    Why don't they just use a small child to kill them with mommy's gun ? Or, perhaps, a whacko high school student ? There seems to an adequate number of people who could do the job for nothing in their spare time.

  9. #9
    I am in Jail

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    I think thats a good idea

    All lifers as well they could make a research programme out of it.

    Life or research programme drug of your choice, they did it to there soldiers why not prisoners.

    They could re-define execution to suicide.

    Quote Originally Posted by Koojo View Post
    I've never understood why, if they want to do it humanely, they just don't give them a massive overdose of heroin.

  10. #10
    . Neverna's Avatar
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    I'm surprised it's not a constitutional right in the USA to be killed by firing squad.

  11. #11
    Thailand Expat Pragmatic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit
    Utah to Use Firing Squads if Lethal Drugs Unavailable
    With the US forces being particularly good at 'blue on blue' incidents I sure as hell wouldn't volunteer to be a witness to the executions.

  12. #12
    I am in Jail

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    My old man used to tell us in WW11 when the Brits fired the Germans ducked, when the Germans fired the Brits ducked.

    When the Americans fired every fucker ducked.

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat Pragmatic's Avatar
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    Here's a Monty Python sketch of how it's done.


  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Koojo View Post
    I've never understood why, if they want to do it humanely, they just don't give them a massive overdose of heroin.
    Fentanyl drip.

    I think I'd rather be shot than injected with the cocktail most states use.

    This is pretty big news in the States:
    Ex-prosecutor of exonerated death row inmate pens apology

  15. #15
    Lord of Swine
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    Quote Originally Posted by robuzo View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Koojo View Post
    I've never understood why, if they want to do it humanely, they just don't give them a massive overdose of heroin.
    Fentanyl drip.

    I think I'd rather be shot than injected with the cocktail most states use.

    This is pretty big news in the States:
    Ex-prosecutor of exonerated death row inmate pens apology


    Which only highlights my earlier question.
    Nembutal and helium or nitrogen,
    The right to die guys like Neitscke (sp?) have this all worked out.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum View Post
    Savages. Plain and simple, just savages.

    Stupid,too.
    stop being so bloody precious.


    even though he has called it “a little bit gruesome.”
    probably a lot less gruesome than the actions of the condemned that resulted in the death sentence.


    The last was in 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was put to death by five police officers with .30-caliber Winchester rifles in an event that generated international interest and elicited condemnation from many.

    Gardner killed a bartender and later shot a lawyer to death and wounded a bailiff during a 1985 courthouse escape attempt.

    The bailiff's widow, VelDean Kirk, who witnessed Gardner's execution, said she supports the new law.

    “I don't think it's barbaric,” she said. “I think that's the best way to do it.”
    it makes perfect sense to me.

  17. #17
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    Dentistry is a strange profession and seems to attract its fair share of eccentrics with somewhat extremist views.

    I reckon it resolves to inflicting pain in order to alleviate greater pain, a paradox which many fail to reconcile and eventually sublimate into their general consciousness whereby conflict can only be properly resolved in the manifestation of sensory extremism - capital punishment being the apogee of their cultish beliefs.

    Tax, contrition leads to rehabilitation and salvation. Bit difficult to achieve if you're fucking dead.

  18. #18
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    contrition leads to rehabilitation and salvation. Bit difficult to achieve if you're fucking dead.


    National Statistics on Recidivism

    Bureau of Justice Statistics studies have found high rates of recidivism among released prisoners.

    One study tracked 404,638 prisoners in 30 states after their release from prison in 2005.[1] The researchers found that:

    Within three years of release, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.

    Within five years of release, about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested.

    Of those prisoners who were rearrested, more than half (56.7 percent) were arrested by the end of the first year.

    Property offenders were the most likely to be rearrested,

    with 82.1 percent of released property offenders arrested for a new crime compared with

    76.9 percent of drug offenders,

    73.6 percent of public order offenders and

    71.3 percent of violent offenders.
    Recidivism | National Institute of Justice


    note the last statistic, 71.3% for violent offenders.

    a bullet makes much more sense economically to say nothing of the service to society it provides.

    contrition is for geriatric memory lapsed shoplifters and kids caught with their mitts in the sweet drawer.

    not knife wielding gun toting murderers.

    your futile wish to save the souls of murdering madmen from purgatory through contrition, salvation and forgiveness suggest you must have found religion, perhaps as a way of counteracting the debilitating effects of the boredom you must surely be suffering stuck 20 floors up in your gated pattaya eyrie with only mangy pigeons and the occasional straw munching security guard for company.

    may god be with you.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum
    Tax, contrition leads to rehabilitation and salvation. Bit difficult to achieve if you're fucking dead.
    To hell with your "rehabilitation and salvation". Just make the murderers dead and the world will be a better place.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neverna
    I'm surprised it's not a constitutional right in the USA to be killed by firing squad.
    Fair point . . . where is the NRA in all of this?

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    [QUOTE=taxexile;2985155]
    a bullet makes much more sense economically to say nothing of the service to society it provides.
    Perhaps Utah should charge the family of the deceased for the expense of the bullet too.

  22. #22
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    Ronnie Lee Gardner
    Well, that's a death row name if ever I saw one - he was marked from Day 1.
    Why do they need a firing squad? Must be able to set up a laser aimed machine of some sort ...

  23. #23
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    It was good enough for Gary Gilmore.....

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by can123 View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Seekingasylum
    Tax, contrition leads to rehabilitation and salvation. Bit difficult to achieve if you're fucking dead.
    To hell with your "rehabilitation and salvation". Just make the murderers dead and the world will be a better place.
    And if you kill a few innocent people in the process, why, just consider them human sacrifices on the alter of your fear.

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by robuzo
    And if you kill a few innocent people in the process, why, just consider them human sacrifices on the alter of your fear.
    There is much to be gained by the deterrent of the death penalty. I am not going to alter my views and there is no "altar of my fear".

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