The Joint Judiciary Interim Committee voted in favor of a bill that would permit the state of Wyoming to issue a firing squad for the execution of death row inmates if the drug for lethal injection is not available.
“It’s not a good subject, but a necessary subject,” said Bruce Burns, a community representative from Sheridan.
The legislative panel met on campus Friday and approved the bill, which will be issued next session at the beginning of next year.
Steve Lindly, deputy director of the Wyoming department of corrections, told the committee it is becoming increasingly difficult for states across the country to obtain the drugs for lethal injection.
Lethal injection is the primary method of execution in Wyoming. A
2011 European Union ban on the export of chemicals used in American executions, manufactured in Europe, has disrupted death penalty methods mandated by state laws. If the court finds lethal injection unconstitutional, state law dictates the gas chamber as an alternative, but Wyoming does not have a gas chamber.
Only one company in the U.S. is approved to produce the drug for lethal injection, made up of a specific chemical compound. The company recently announced it would no longer sell sodium thiopental to the government due to a nationwide shortage. Sodium thiopental is an aesthetic part of the make-up for the lethal injection drug.
The company’s decision is making it harder for states to execute inmates using lethal injection. With the drug unavailable and without a gas chamber, the bill would allow the state of Wyoming to execute inmates on death row using a firing squad.
In spite of the lack of the drugs necessary to carry out lethal injections, some lawmakers still opposed the bill.
“Personally, I do not want the government to commit suicide on my behalf,” Committee Co-Chairman Keith Gingery told the associated press. “I disagree with the state of Wyoming committing murder.”
Wyoming has one inmate on death row. Dale Wayne Eaton is pressing a federal appeal of the death sentence he received 10 years ago for the murder of Lisa Marie Kimmell, 18, of Billings, Montana. Eaton’s lawyers aren’t disputing on appeal that he killed her, but they are arguing that the state didn’t provide adequate resources for his trial lawyers to present evidence of hardships in his life that might have prompted members of the jury to consider sparing his life.
Lindly said the corrections department isn’t ready to proceed to execute Eaton in the event that the federal court clears the way for his execution. “If the court were to set a day and the state were unable to obtain those (drugs), it would be unable to meet the court’s order,” Lindly said.
There’s been talk this year about reinstituting the firing squad in Utah. That state outlawed execution by firing squad in 2004, but kept it as an option for inmates convicted before that time. It last executed an inmate by firing squad in 2010.
