Utah wants to make sure it has a back-up method to execute prisoners on death row with the approval on Friday by the state's House of Representatives of a bill that would bring back the firing squad.

Death by this method, stopped in 2004, would only be an alternative way, lethal injection would still be the preferred option. However, states are having difficulty procuring execution drugs since pharmaceutical companies have stopped making them, USA Today reports.

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Some states tried a three-drug cocktail, but because of reports that it resulted in botched executions because of the extreme pain it caused some of the death row convicts, the high court stopped three lethal injections in Oklahoma in January, pending a review.

One such convict is convicted Oklahoma murderer Clayton Lockett, who died of a heart attack but suffered for 43 minutes writhing, groaning and struggling in pain after the cocktail was injected. Similar incidents have been reported in Arizona and Ohio.

Utah would only resort to death by firing is the specified drugs aren't available 30 days before a scheduled execution or if the courts would declare lethal injection as unconstitutional.

Republican Rep. Paul Ray said, "It is never easy to talk about taking another life, but in our judicial system we have a means that requires that sometimes." Ray is the author of the firing squad legislation.

Indonesia was heavily criticized by foreign governments whose citizens were among the six drug dealers executed on January 18 through firing squad. There are several more locals and foreigners on Jakarta's death row despite pressures from overseas to instead commute the death sentence to life terms.

One such nation is Australia which has been applying diplomacy to save the Bali 9. However, Indonesian President Joko Widodo is not affected by the criticisms or pressure, saying, "Every day we have 50 people die because of narcotics, of drugs. In one year, it's 18,000 people. We are not going to compromise for drug dealers," quotes CNN.

Tagsfiring squad, execution, lethal injection, Utah