No controversy over the ingredients of the lead injection.
Via Palm Beach Post:
A death row inmate in Georgia wants to be executed by a firing squad, claiming that lethal injection would be too painful for him, CNN reported.
Convicted murderer J.W. Ledford Jr. is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday. He currently takes a pain medication called gabapentin. In documents filed by his lawyer in U.S. District Court, Ledford claims the drug has changed his brain chemistry so much, the lethal injection drug pentobarbital might not render him unconscious, causing him “to suffer an excruciating death.”
“Mr. Ledford proposes that the firing squad is a readily implemented and more reliable alternative method of execution that would eliminate the risks posed to him by lethal injection,” his lawyers said.[…]
“In Utah’s most recent execution by firing squad, the inmate was seated in a chair set up between stacked sandbags to prevent the bullets from ricocheting,” his lawyers wrote. “A target was pinned over the inmate’s heart. Five shooters set up at a distance of 21 feet from the inmate, armed with .30-caliber Winchester rifles. One rifle was loaded with blanks so that no one knew which officer killed the inmate. The inmate was pronounced dead two minutes after he was shot.”
A firing squad has less chance for “operator error” and would reduce Ledford’s chance of experiencing severe pain, his lawyers wrote.