With lethal-injection drugs in short supply and new questions looming about their effectiveness, lawmakers in some states with the death penalty are considering bringing back relics of a more gruesome past: firing squads, electrocutions and gas chambers.
Most states abandoned those execution methods more than a generation ago, in the hope of making capital punishment more palatable to the public and to a judicial system worried about inflicting cruel and unusual punishments that violate the constitution.
But to some elected officials, the shortages of lethal drugs and the recent legal challenges around them are beginning to make lethal injection seem too vulnerable to complications.
"This isn't an attempt to time warp back into the 1850s or the wild, wild west or anything like that," said the Missouri state Republican representative, Rick Brattin, who this month proposed making firing squads an option for executions. "It's just that I foresee a problem, and I'm trying to come up with a solution that will be the most humane yet most economical for our state." » | Associated Press | Tuesday, January 28, 2014
