It comes with a $50,000 price tag and is likely to go “behind the budget,” where the House version went. “This is not humane by any means,” she said.īut alas, the Senate Judiciary voted 5-2 with two abstaining to send the bill on to Finance, Ways and Means. Tennessee, where three out of five ain’t bad: Capital punishment methods include hanging, lethal injection, electrocution, shooting by firing squad, and gas chamber. She also noted that South Carolina’s firing squad law was found unconstitutional and likened it to using inmates as “dummies in a gun range,” near legalization of first-degree murder. Lamar, a Memphis Democrat who is accustomed to reading news about people getting killed, as most of us are, complained that it cost Utah $1.5 million to construct a firing squad chamber and another $165,000 for 30 days of training leading up to the execution. It makes you wonder if correction officers have a hyper-sense of duty or simply want to shoot somebody. Powers told the Senate Judiciary that in Utah, the last place someone was executed by firing squad, 32 people volunteered when only five were needed. London Lamar, a Tennessee Department of Correction representative said the state is “officially deferred” on the bill, meaning it doesn’t take a position.Īsked if anyone in the department has expressed interest in shooting somebody, the spokesman pointed out the bill hasn’t become law yet.īut just give them time. Under questioning from the apoplectic Sen.

“Four bullets through the heart affects everybody the same way,” Niceley said. Niceley pointed drugs and electricity have different effects on people and sometimes don’t kill them. Niceley, a Strawberry Plains Republican, told senators that can’t happen because the inmate is strapped in a chair and has a target on his heart. Frank Niceley, who is sponsoring the Senate version of the bill, explained it succinctly when asked what happens if the inmate flinches and doesn’t die when shot. The only person to testify in favor of a bill to bring the firing squad back as a method of executing people in Tennessee was sponsor Dennis Powers, a Jacksboro Republican, who said the bill is designed to give inmates a choice in how they die - like giving someone a choice of peach or blackberry cobbler Thus, the much simpler method of a deadly bullet. It’s not secret Tennessee is struggling with the protocol for lethal injections and was forced to put executions on hold. Dennis Powers of Jacksboro, who informed the Senate Judiciary Committee it is merely designed to give Death Row inmates another option – sort of like picking peach cobbler over blackberry. Oddly enough, the only person the sponsors could find to testify in favor of the bill this week was one of the sponsors, Republican Rep. Regardless of that possibility, the Legislature is advancing a bill that not only revives Old Sparky, the electric chair, but would line up Department of Correction officers with rifles and have them open fire on the inmate. This time, it could be for Death Row inmates, those folks who occasionally are found not guilty through DNA testing after they sit in prison for 30 years – mainly Black men. Tennessee is a few steps from bringing back firing squads, something that hasn’t been used as a form of punishment since the Civil War, mainly when soldiers refused to follow stupid orders such as “Run into the face of that cannon fire!”

Hyper bullet bill