Why Is America Bringing Back Firing Squads?

Medical experts and those who study capital punishment say every method may go wrong and cause severe pain.

Warning: This story contains disturbing descriptions of executions

America's use of the death penalty has come under renewed scrutiny after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the military would broadcast a live execution by firing squad Nidal Hassan.

In 2009, the former military psychiatrist shot 13 unarmed US soldiers at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.

His execution marks the first time the US military has used a firing squad since 1945, a method that several states have already authorized to kill people.

And this comes after the tragic death by lethal injection of Christa Pike - a woman convicted of murdering her classmate.

Pike was taken to a hospital and released 10 days later after recovering from the failed attempt, his lawyers said.

Amid growing concerns about wrongful executions — and federal support for the death penalty — the United States has introduced both new and old forms of execution, such as firing squads, the electric chair and the gas chamber.

The vast majority of executions in the United States have been by lethal injection since they were first introduced in Texas in 1982. The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit think tank that does not take a position on the death penalty, says there have been 64 botched executions abroad in the past 50 years — including 58 of the 31 executions. Executions

The difficulty of carrying out these executions and the uproar over what some consider to be inhumane treatment have prompted authorities to consider alternative methods of killing people. But medical experts and those who study executions say any method the United States uses to kill people can result in excruciating pain, especially if it goes wrong.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said: "We always have the possibility that something will go wrong when humans are involved in executions."

Public executions stopped in the US nearly a century ago - why are they resuming now?

Several medical groups—including the National Associations of Physicians and Nurses—also prohibit their members from participating in executions. The American Medical Association, which represents doctors in the United States, states that they are "a profession dedicated to saving life when there is hope of doing so" and that participating in any way in executions is against their oath.

Lethal injection, first used in Texas in 1982, is now the most common way people are executed across the United States, and many states have made it their default method.

Dr. Joel Ziot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery based in Atlanta, Georgia, said states turned to lethal injection because it appeared from the outside to be a gentler means of execution.

Sometimes injecting these drugs can cause pulmonary edema, when a person's lungs fill with fluid, which can give people a painful feeling of drowning, Dr. Ziyot said.

"It's a horrible way to die - drowning," he said.

Other times, people have medical conditions, like Pike — who suffers from thrombocytosis and other medical problems his lawyers have warned about — that can complicate an execution and make it more painful.

His attorneys said that during Pike's botched execution, "he could be heard crying, moaning and breathing loudly throughout the process."

According to Maher, there are several reasons why many lethal injections have failed, but some of the same factors persist.

"Often, executions go wrong because staff training is inadequate, because drugs are destroyed or expired or stored improperly, or because states try different combinations of drugs that have never been used before," he said.

Most of the time, little information is available to the public about people who administer lethal injections because states typically do not share the training they have received.

Maher said: "In many cases, and unfortunately after a failed execution, we have discovered that the cause was insufficient experience and training of the execution staff.

Lethal injection drugs are also hard to come by because many pharmaceutical companies don't want to sell these drugs to prisons for this use because they are made for life-saving purposes.

In light of many of these challenges, some governments have turned to these challenges and executed people with a new and controversial method: nitrogen gas.

Alabama and Louisiana are the first states to carry out executions by nitrogen gas, although three other states - Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma - also have the option.

Two years ago, Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith, after a failed attempt to kill him by lethal injection in 2022.

A witness told the BBC at the time: "During the execution, which lasted 25 minutes, Smith thrashed violently on the gurney as he was gassed.

This method involves forcing the prisoner to breathe pure nitrogen gas until he suffocates.

People who breathe in the gas sometimes have convulsions, Dr. Ziyot said. Alabama has executed seven people using nitrogen gas since introducing the method in January 2024.

"Each time it was a gruesome display of struggle, movement, grasping," said Dr. Zevet.

While some states have explored new methods, others have reauthorized some of the first methods US authorities used to kill people.

As of this year, nine states have approved execution by electric chair, with South Carolina using it as its default method.

Maher said electrocution "has a terrible record of botched executions" and that mistakes in those executions are one of the reasons governments introduced lethal injections in the first place.

In 1997, Sir Pedro Medina caught fire while being executed in the electric chair in Florida.

"There was a strong flame covering his entire head, from one side to the other," his attorney Mike Minerva said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

A method once used as punishment in the military during wartime, firing squad executions are also prone to human error.

Mikahel Mehdi was executed by a three-man firing squad last year after confessing to killing an off-duty police officer in 2004. But his lawyers say his death was prolonged because the bullets hit his heart instead of his liver and other organs.

In July, Idaho became the first state to use the firing squad as its primary method of execution after it phased out lethal injection. Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah and South Carolina also allow this method of execution.

Alonzo Lunsford, a former US Army sergeant who survived Hassan's seven bullets in the Fort Hood attack, told the BBC that a firing squad was a "decent" way to end his life, as a lethal injection and a gas chamber could "do him a favour".