Death Penalty | Utah’s adoption of firing squads bucks global trend

Utah’s decision to reintroduce the firing squad as an execution method if lethal injections drugs are unavailable bucks an international trend.
Utah’s governor has signed a law that makes his state the only one to allow firing squads for carrying out executions if no lethal injection drugs are available. Utah and Oklahoma are the only states which allow for the firing squads. However, Oklahoma would allow them only as a last resort, if all other methods are ruled unconstitutional. The U.S. is the only country in the Americas to allow the use of firing squads in civilian cases besides Cuba.
Many countries that use firing squads usually reserve them for military cases or during war time. An exception is Indonesia which is preparing to execute 10 drug smugglers, nine of them foreigners, by firing squad after judicial reviews are complete.
China, where thousands of people are believed to be executed each year, traditionally used firing squads. But in recent years China has begun using lethal injections and that is now believed to be the main technique. The exact number of executions in China is a state secret, but it is thought to be the most in the world.
Firing squads remain the preferred method of execution in Somalia and Equatorial Guinea and are known to have been used in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. North Korea is believed to use them.
According to Amnesty International at least 778 executions, excluding China’s, were carried out around the globe in 2013 — the last year for which numbers were available — compared to 682 in 2012. The organization did not provide a breakdown of executions methods.
At least 1,927 people were known to have been sentenced to death in 57 countries in 2013, up from 1,722 death sentences in 58 countries in 2012, according to Amnesty. AP