A bill advancing through the North Carolina General Assembly seeks to restart capital punishment in the state, where legal challenges to the state’s lethal injection method have paused the death penalty for 19 years.
A House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to House Bill 270, which would allow criminals sentenced to death in North Carolina to choose lethal injection, electrocution, or firing squad for their execution.
Lethal injection has been North Carolina’s primary method for executions since 1998, when the state pivoted away from lethal gas. The state hasn’t carried out a death penalty sentence since 2006, when legal challenges put executions on hold. A federal judge ruled that a doctor must monitor the condemned for signs of pain, to make sure no unconstitutional pain occurs. However, the state’s medical board at the time threatened to punish any doctor who takes part in an execution because it conflicts with the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm,” the Associated Press reported.
State Rep. David Willis, a Republican from Union County who sponsored the bill, said he hopes the legislation will help the state resume executions in part by moving to methods that don’t require doctors.
“We’re here today to support those families who have long been awaiting justice and closure to the loss of loved ones by the folks that have been put on death row,” Willis said.
House Bill 270, sponsored by nine House Republicans, would require inmates to select their preferred method of execution in writing 14 days before it’s scheduled to take place. If the inmate makes no choice, the penalty would be carried out by electrocution.
The state hasn’t used the electric chair for an execution since 1938. Critics of the bill said the new execution options are inhumane.
“Electrocutions are gruesome,” said Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches, a group that advocates for social justice.
“Prisoners catch fire cooked from the inside, there is a smell of burning human flesh,” Copeland said.
