The recent Supreme Court decision in Glossip v. Gross affirmed the legality of midazolam for use in lethal injection. The 5–4 majority opinion reads the Constitution to require an available form of execution. But it does little to counter Professor Denno’s claim in “Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze” that pragmatic supply-side concerns should dismantle the economy for lethal injection. Off-brand substitutes for lethal injection drugs have led to recent high-profile botches. Both Utah and Wyoming have proposed a return to the firing squad. Lethal injection is comparatively sanitary and bureaucratic. But I respond that the firing squad is more coherent with death penalty administration heuristic concerns of retribution and dignity. The visibility of the firing squad also serves an abolitionist, information-forcing function by requiring a candid look at death penalty process from the perspective of the executed.

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