Diann Rust-Tierney stated:
"The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is disappointed that policymakers in Oklahoma have chosen to invent a new way of killing prisoners rather than confront directly the underlying problem."
Rust-Tierney specified that the state's lawmakers should rather be concentrating on violence prevention curriculum in schools, mental health services, better educational opportunities and "jobs that pay living wages."
The Oklahoma Senate’s approval follows the state’s moratorium on executions while the US Supreme Court decides whether Oklahoma’s current three drug lethal injection method is constitutional.
Nearly 1,400 executions have been carried out in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 after a four-year suspension of the practice by the US Supreme Court.
