article_snippet: Utah lawmakers have passed a bill that would make it the only state to allow firing squads for carrying out a death penalty if there is a shortage of execution drugs-some even claim the firing squad death is more humane.
article_snippet: This June 18, 2010, file photo shows the firing squad execution chamber at the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah and may soon be put back in practice .
article_snippet: In Utah the prisoners will not be allowed a final cigarette - as has historically been the custom before facing a firing squad.
article_snippet: Firing squad executions are usually executed by five or so police officers with .30-caliber
article_snippet: Utah has carried out three executions by firing squad since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the Death Penalty in 1976.
article_snippet: Opponents, however, said firing squads are a cruel holdover from Utah's wild West days and will earn the state international condemnation. '
article_snippet: Ralph Dellapiana, director of Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty called firing squads 'a relic of a more barbaric past.'
article_snippet: A few were persuaded to support it once they learned Utah law already calls for Utah to revert to the firing squad if a court ever declares lethal injection unconstitutional, Ray said.
article_snippet: The legislation would reinstate the use of firing squads more than a decade after Utah abandoned the practice.
article_snippet: Utah is one of several states to seek out new forms of capital punishment after a botched Oklahoma lethal injection last year and one in Arizona that took nearly two hours for the condemned man to die.
article_snippet: Legislation to allow firing squads has been introduced in Arkansas this year.
article_snippet: In Wyoming, a measure to allow firing squads if the lethal drugs aren't available died.
article_snippet: In Oklahoma, lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow Utah to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates.
article_snippet: Utah's proposal keeps lethal injection as the primary method of execution, but Utah's proposal allows for Utah to use firing squads if Utah cannot obtain lethal injection drugs.
article_snippet: Texas' supply will be used up if Utah goes forward with two lethal injections in the next two weeks.
article_snippet: The head of Utah's prison system has said Utah does not have any lethal injection drugs on hand and would have to obtain some in the years ahead if an execution were to be scheduled.
article_snippet: Utah lawmakers, concerned about intense media attention, stopped offering inmates the choice of a death by firing squad in 2004.
article_snippet: A handful of inmates on Utah's death row were sentenced before the law changed and still have the option of going before a firing squad after A handful of inmates on Utah's death row court appeals are exhausted.
article_snippet: The Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, says a firing squad is not a foolproof execution method because the inmate could move or shooters could miss his heart, causing a slower, more painful death.