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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Missouri Attorney General Calls For Revival Of Gas Chambers

Intent on moving forward with scheduled executions at any price, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said this week he would resort to the gas chamber while other methods are tied up in court battle.
Koster’s comments are the latest move to push forward executions, as litigation over the humanity of lethal injections using the anesthetic propofol continues. Koster dismissed concerns over the cruelty of reviving the gas chamber in an exchange with The Associated Press, saying, “The premeditated murder of an innocent Missourian is cruel and unusual punishment. The lawful implementation of the death penalty, following a fair and reasoned jury trial, is not.”
Missouri stopped using the gas chamber in 1965 and shut down its last prison containing a gas chamber decades ago, according to AP. California’s use of the gas chamber was deemed cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment by one federal appeals court in 1996.

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