GOVERNOR ORDERS MORATORIUM
Newly elected Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in the state Friday, calling the current system of capital punishment “error prone, expensive and anything but infallible.” The Democrat said the moratorium will remain in effect at least until he receives a report from a legislative commission that has been studying the topic for about four years. “If we are to continue to administer the death penalty, we must take further steps to ensure that defendants have appropriate counsel at every stage of their prosecution, that the sentence is applied fairly and proportionally, and that we eliminate the risk of executing an innocent,” Wolf said in a memorandum announcing the policy. The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association said Wolf had no authority to impose the moratorium, calling it a misuse of the concept of a reprieve.
— Associated Press
A hotly contested proposal to resurrect Utah’s use of firing squads to carry out executions narrowly passed a key vote Friday in the state’s Legislature as it and other states struggle to continue using the lethal injection method of execution.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 39-34 to approve the measure, sending it to an uncertain fate in the state’s GOP-controlled Senate. Leaders in that chamber have thus far declined to say if they’ll support it, and Utah’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert, won’t say if he’ll sign it.
Rep. Paul Ray, a Republican who sponsored the measure, argues that a team of trained marksmen is faster and more humane than the drawn-out deaths that have occurred in cases where lethal injections have been botched. The drugs used in the injection have also become increasingly difficult to obtain, with some manufacturers refusing to sell them to states with capital punishment, and efforts by states to hide the identity of suppliers face lawsuits.
Under Ray’s bill, Utah would avoid those obstacles by calling for a firing squad if the state cannot get lethal injection drugs 30 days before an execution.
Critics say the firing squad is a gruesome relic of Utah’s Wild West past and would bring international condemnation. That criticism and excessive media attention was one of the reasons many lawmakers voted in 2004 to stop allowing condemned prisoners there to choose death by firing squad.
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 once they have exhausted any appeals. The method was last used in 2010.
A bill to allow firing squad executions is also working its way through Wyoming’s Legislature, while lawmakers in Oklahoma are considering legislation that would allow the state to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates.
The Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, says that a firing squad is not a foolproof method because the inmate could move or shooters could miss the heart, causing a slower, more painful death. One such case appears to have occurred in Utah’s territorial days in 1879, when a firing squad missed Wallace Wilkerson’s heart and it took him 27 minutes to die, according to newspaper accounts.
Several opponents of the firing squad bill and the death penalty in general said they were disappointed by Friday’s vote but encouraged that it passed on such a slim margin.
“The fact that it was so close in our state is really exciting,” said Anna Brower with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. “I think there are legislators who, while they may have complicated feelings about the death penalty, understand that this particular method is not good advertising for Utah.”
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