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| Utah lawmakers eliminate executions by firing squad |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/01/2004 |
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The Utah Legislature gave final approval Feb. 20 to a bill eliminating firing squad executions for condemned prisoners -- but allowing four current death-row inmates to go out in a hail of bullets. The Utah House gave final legislative approval to the measure that will abolish the firing squad as an option for condemned killers and make lethal injection the state's only method of capital punishment. Gov. Olene Walker said that it was "a sad commentary" that Utah still had the firing squad. "I think we need to make the death penalty as humane as possible. I will certainly sign it," Walker said at her weekly news conference. Final approval in the House came without debate, but the Senate on Feb. 19 took up the merits of the firing squad in a 16-9 vote to do away with it. Sen. Ron Allen, a Democrat, said allowing murderers to choose firing squads so they can "go out in a blaze of glory" perversely made heroes of criminals and caused victims' families more pain. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, two people in the United States have died by firing squad, both in Utah: Gary Gilmore in 1977 and John Albert Taylor in 1996. Taylor's execution drew more than 150 television crews from around the world. Idaho and Oklahoma retain the firing squad on their books as an option, but haven't used it in modern history. Utah's firing squads drew on a purported early Mormon belief that held that justice was not done unless a murderer's blood was shed. However, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told the Legislature that was not church dogma and it had no objection to abolishing the firing squad. |
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