A bill moving in the state House this week would reintroduce the electric chair and firing squads as part of the death penalty.
North Carolina hasn't had any executions since 2006 due to legal challenges, and lethal injection has been the only legal method here since 1998. The House bill seeks to restart executions for people on Death Row, according to Rep. David Willis, R-Union and the bill's sponsor.
"Those court cases have been frozen in place for the last close to 20 years," Willis said. "It's time for these cases to be moved forward ... 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 says the bill mirrors recent changes in South Carolina, which conducted executions by firing squad starting this year. That state passed legislation to allow more methods of execution in response to difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injections.
North Carolina hasn't used the electric chair since the 1930s. The bill calls for that to become the default method unless the person being executed requests another available method.
"It gives the opportunity for a criminal on death row to have the choice of their execution method," Willis said. "It no longer relies solely on the cocktail, as they refer to it, to be used. They have their choice."
Opponents of the bill say electrocutions and firing squads are inhumane.
"Electrocutions are gruesome — prisoners catch fire, cook from the inside ... possibly even jolting a conscious person multiple times to bring about their death," said Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the N.C. Council of Churches.
