Wyoming’s Joint Judiciary Legislative Committee has voted to support a bill that would allow for execution by firing squad, but voted down an attempt to abolish the death penalty altogether.
States nationwide are being forced to find alternatives to executions now that drugs for lethal injections are hard to come by. Abolishing the death penalty altogether generated considerable debate. Baggs Senator Larry Hicks says the death penalty provides justice for victims.
But Laramie Representative Cathy Connolly says the issue is greater than that.
"I would love a statute that said that Cathy Connolly could kill child molesters with her own hands. But that is not acceptable, that is not appropriate, just because I as a victim or a parent of a victim would like that. It’s our role in the legislature to come up with the appropriate punishment."
The full legislature will consider the death by firing squad bill when the full legislature meets in January.