One of the nation's most prominent judges is urging states that have the death penalty to abandon lethal injection and switch to the "more primitive" but "foolproof" firing squad as their primary method of executing death-row inmates.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote a blistering critique of lethal injection in a dissenting opinion in the death-penalty case of Joseph Wood, an Arizona convicted murderer whose July 23 execution was delayed by a Ninth Circuit panel...