CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Prompted by the shortages of available drugs for lethal injections, Wyoming lawmakers are considering changing state law to permit execution of condemned inmates by firing squad.

A Wyoming legislative committee has directed its staff to draft a firing-squad bill for consideration ahead of next year’s legislative session starting in January.

Lawmakers in Utah also may consider a return to firing squads for civilian executions. A Republican state lawmaker there recently announced that he intends to introduce firing-squad legislation in his state’s next legislative session in January as well.

Utah outlawed execution by firing squad in 2004 but kept it as an option for inmates convicted before then. It last executed an inmate by firing squad in 2010.

Bob Lampert, director of the Wyoming Department of Corrections, told members of the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Interim Judiciary Committee last week in Rawlins that drugs for lethal injection have become increasingly difficult to obtain.

“In the event that we had an execution scheduled and we couldn’t carry it out as a result of lack of substances, I suggested to the Joint Judiciary that we may want to consider having an alternate means of execution, such as the firing squad,” Lampert said Wednesday.

Current state law specifies Wyoming would execute condemned inmates in a gas chamber, which the state doesn’t currently have, as a backup to lethal injection only if lethal injection were found to be unconstitutional. Existing state law doesn’t address how the state should proceed in response to a drug shortage.

Lethal injection is becoming increasingly difficult for states to perform as pharmaceutical companies withhold drug compounds that states traditionally have used. Some inmates have raised constitutional challenges as states have turned to untried compounds.

Wyoming has no execution drugs on hand, Lampert said.

Last month, Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after corrections officials there started trying to administer drugs at his execution. President Obama called the incident deeply troubling and asked his attorney general to review the application of the death penalty.

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