Utah bans firing-squad executions

[emad]

From: BBC News

The US state of Utah has scrapped the use of firing squads to execute criminals sentenced to death. Supporters of the ban say it will deny convicts the right to opt for a dramatic death in a storm of gunfire. The state's marksmen have carried out a number of high-profile executions - including that of killer Gary Gilmour in 1977. Idaho and Oklahoma retain the firing squad on their books but have not used it in modern times.

Gilmour's death drew attention because he was the first man to be executed in the US after a 10-year moratorium on capital punishment.
The last person to die by firing squad in the US was John Albert Taylor, executed in Utah in 1996.

The US-based Death Penalty Information Center says Utah's firing squad teams typically consisted of five law-enforcement officers. The inmate would be strapped to a chair and have a white cardboard target placed on his chest. One of the five marksmen was given blanks as a way of disguising exactly who fired the lethal bullets. With the passage of Utah's new law, lethal injection becomes the sole means of execution for the state's death-row inmates. But Utah says it will make allowance for four death row inmates who have already chosen to die by firing squad.

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3519310.stm

[xultar]

1. Any news on when they will allow motor cars, in door plumbing, or

electricity?

Just wondering...

[emad]

2. Probably when the women revolt and demand polyandry rights

over men - you know, legal marriage to four men at a time, just to give them equality with the present system....

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Why don't they use carbon monoxide?

From what I read, the person just gets sleepy, passes out and never wakes up. Same thing with cooking gas (methane/ethane/propane/buthane).

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. It's called "blood atonement"

For truly heinous crimes like murder, the Mormons feel that blood must be spilled for the crime to be really punished.

I believe it was a voluntary choice by the victim, among several other types of punishments (if they were Mormon and wanted justice). I want to say that it was also on the books for awhile in places like Idaho and Wyoming, who also have a few Mormons in their midst. But I think they got rid of it awhile back. Not sure.

[Vladimir]

5. You hear that sound?

Its the 19th century creeping up on the Utah lawmakers...

V

[Endangered Specie]

6. well, theyve managed to join the 20th century

significant improvement

[jmowreader]

7. The firing squad is better than lethal injection

In lethal injection, you receive a dose of sodium thiopental, a dose of pancuronium bromide and a dose of potassium chloride. The problem is that by the time you receive the dose of pancuronium bromide, the thiopental has started to wear off and you get to suffer through a very excruciating few minutes while stupid people think "oh, he died so peacefully"--not realizing that you look peaceful because your face won't move.

In a firing squad execution as performed in Utah, they strap you to a chair and expert marksmen fire four .30-30 rounds--a rifle used to hunt large animals like deer and elk--into your heart. You die instantly.

A firing squad execution is barbaric. So is a lethal-injection execution.

You know those law libraries in prisons that the Republicans hate? If I was a death-row inmate in Utah (pre-ban) and I was given the choice between lethal injection or firing squad, it wouldn't take much reading to figure out that an execution where I was dead before the sound of the rifles reached my chair (sound travels at 1116 feet per second; .30-30 rifles have a muzzle velocity of 2200 feet per second) would be preferable to lying on a table for five minutes, not being able to breathe and not being able to do a thing about it.

[ConcernedCanuk]

8. Solve the debate , END THE DEATH PENALTY

.
.
.

Besides not being a deterrant to Crime, innocent people are being put to death

From Amnesty International:

Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty

1. Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries

Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

Amnesty International's latest information shows that:

* 78 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes
* 15 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes
* 24 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions


making a total of 117 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

* 78 other countries retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.


/snip/


Recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. In Canada, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980, and since then it has declined further.

In 2002, 26 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.85 per 100,000 population, 40 per cent lower than in 1975.





Ok - so where's the justification in ANY execution? :shrug: