Missouri state Rep. Rick Brattin, a Republican representing Harrisonville, introduced legislation Friday that would add five-person firing squads as an alternative to the state's current method of capital punishment, lethal injection.
Brattin cited the prolonged death Thursday of Dennis McGuire in Ohio as evidence that alternative methods were needed after manufacturers of pentobarbitol, the drug most commonly used in lethal injections, began withdrawing it from use in executions on ethical grounds.
It took almost 25 minutes for McGuire, who was executed for raping and murdering a 22-year-old pregnant newlywed, to die gasping and choking Thursday from a new combination of drugs that had never before been used in a U.S. execution. McGuire's family said Friday it intends to sue Ohio prison officials for what they called McGuire's "torture."
Missouri also allows execution by lethal gas, but its gas chamber hasn't been functional since 1965. With the state's next execution scheduled for Jan. 29, "we've been having all of these troubles getting the drugs to administer the lethal injection," Brattin told the statewide radio network Missourinet on Friday.
"I was just looking at a second option, something we could do if we had to utilize the death penalty and we could not administer the lethal injection," Brattin said.
Besides being "quick and something we could do at a moment's notice," he said, an execution by firing squad would be more humane than McGuire's ordeal.
Sure. Killing someone with a bunch of bullets is more humane than killing them with drugs. Because ethics, and America! It's what Jesus would have done, right?
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