As Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray announced that the state prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty for Tyler Robinson, the accused of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, questions are being raised as to whether Robinson could face execution by a firing squad, as Utah law allows firing squad and execution by lethal injection. “I do not take this decision lightly and it is a decision I have made independently as county attorney based solely on the available evidence and circumstances and nature of the crime,” Gray said about pursuing the death penalty. “I talked to officials from both (Cox and Trump) administrations, but I was not pressured to make a decision.”
Utah’s firing squad death penalty
Most executions in the US are carried out by lethal injection. Utah is one of the two states that used the firing squad in modern US history — South Carolina being the other. Utah carried out firing squad executions in 1977, 1996 and 2010. Three other states − Idaho, Mississippi, and Oklahoma − have legalized firing squads as an execution method.Utah’s current default execution method is lethal injection. So Tyler could face a firing squad if he’s convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death but he also may not. Before 2004, inmates could choose to die by firing squad over lethal injection but now they no longer have a choice. Under current law, inmates will be executed by lethal injection unless that method is found to be unconstitutional or the lethal drugs used in executions are unavailable.According to experts, Robinson has years of trial in front of him before he’s convicted. In August, Ralph Leroy Menzies was spared execution by firing squad by the state’s Supreme Court after his defense attorneys argued he had dementia. Menzies, 67, was set to be executed on Sept. 5 for the 1986 abduction and killing of Utah mother of three Maurine Hunsaker.
