WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US state of Utah law allowing executions to be carried out by a firing squad might lead to the eventual elimination of the death penalty in the United States as a growing number of people view it as illogical and immoral, two-time Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson told Sputnik.
On March 10, the legislature of Utah passed a bill allowing executions to be carried out by firing squads if chemicals used in lethal injection cocktails to kill prisoners are not available.
“I do think this law could lead to the elimination of the death penalty if for no other reason that it has revived a discussion about the death penalty generally,” Anderson said on Tuesday.
Anderson argued that given the rate at which people that have been exonerated — 150 since 1976 — the arbitration with which executions are carried out, the economic costs involved and the general trend against executions, the death penalty may finally be erased in the United States.
The 150 exonerated is than 1 in 10 people on death row, he added, leaving no doubt that more innocent people are being convicted.
“No doubt innocent people have been executed, and we all know that without exception, most people are too poor to afford effective counsel and have received effective counsel.”
Utah resident Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by firing squad in 2010, Anderson stated, but jurors said they would have not voted for the death penalty had they seen evidence that Gardner’s attorney failed to present in court.
“It’s very sobering for people to hear especially with judges from federal and state courts that Gardner had received ineffective assistance of counsel, but that concern was just disregarded by the appellate courts,” he said.
In the last seven years, six US states eliminated the death penalty, five declared a moratorium on the death penalty, and two governors have declared moratoriums.
Only seven US states carried out executions in 2014 — a 20-year low.
Anderson stated that the controversy surrounding the death penalty prompted Utah legislators to ask for an interim committee to evaluate it through further study.
“This discussion about the means of executing people actually led to a broader discussion concerning whether we should have the death penalty at all,” he added.
Anderson also stated that the death sentence costs $1.6 million more than all procedures of cost of life imprisonment for a defendant's lifetime, an audit of a court case revealed.
Given those facts, he argued, Utah’s Firing Squad Law is a big step backwards.
“It’s astoundingly embarrassing we are returning after more than a generation to this barbaric means of the state killing people.”
There are enough good people in the legislature that have tremendous reservations about restoring the means of state murder, he concluded.
