JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (CN) - Missouri could be bringing back firing squads for executions.
A bill in the state's House would allow condemned prisoner to choose execution by firing squad. The shooters would be law enforcement officers chosen by the state corrections director.
Firing squads traditionally loaded one officer's gun with a blank, so that no officer could be certain he had killed a person.
Missouri executes people with lethal injection, but that process has come under fire after the state went from a three-drug combination to a single drug.
State law also allows for use of the gas chamber, by which 39 inmates were executed from 1938 to 1965.
Read the Top 8
Sign up for the Top 8, a roundup of the day's top stories delivered directly to your inbox Monday through Friday.
Additional Reads
-
Why executions by firing squad may be coming back in the US March 24, 2023 -
Court: Arizona governor not required to carry out execution March 22, 2023
-
-
NYC bike path attacker spared death penalty in rare trial March 13, 2023