Donald Grant and Gilbert Postelle, both on death row in Oklahoma, are seeking court approval of execution by firing squad instead of three-drug lethal injection. Their attorneys are hoping for their imminent executions to be delayed until a trial can determine whether lethal injection is unconstitutional. If that's the ruling, lethal injection is permitted as per state law. From NBC News:
"While it may be gruesome to look at, we all agree it will be quicker," attorney Jim Stronski told [US District Judget Stephen] Friot after a daylong hearing in Oklahoma City[…]
Among the experts who testified was Dr. James Williams, an emergency medicine specialist from Texas who has more than 40,000 hours of emergency room experience and who has extensively studied the use of firing squads.
Williams, himself the victim of a gunshot wound to the chest area, testified that a firing squad involving shots from at least four high-powered rifles to the "cardiac bundle" of the heart would be so quick that an inmate wouldn't feel pain. He also said that unlike lethal injection, there is an extremely low likelihood that the execution would be botched.
In other news, we're still executing people. Still. In 2022.
image: Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, by Édouard Manet, 1868. (public domain)
