Legislators Urge Firing Squads, Electrocutions, And Gas Chamber To Thwart Delayed Executions

For some lawmakers, nothing will stop their commitment to the death penalty. International drug companies have refused to provide their drugs for U.S. executions over moral opposition. Courts have held up executions as litigation moves forward over alternative injection drugs to skirt those restrictions. And states like Ohio that are moving forward with the death penalty using a new untried drug that left an inmate gasping for 25 minutes are sure to face more legal challenges going forward.

So they have other ideas, even as the death penalty is falling out of favor nationwide. In Missouri, the state whose attorney general has already proposed the revival of gas chambers and secured court approval of secret lethal cocktail manufacturing, lawmakers are now proposing a bill to bring back firing squads. Wyoming is also floating a firing squads measure, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports. And a Virginia bill that would bring back electrocution passed the Virginia House this week. Virginia is one of several states that now permit death by electric chair only by inmate request.

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