SALT LAKE CITY — A bill to resurrect the use of firing squads in Utah passed its first hurdle at the state Legislature on Wednesday when the proposal barely cleared a committee.



Rep. Paul Ray said the firing squad, with trained marksmen and a restrained inmate, offers a swift, more humane death than lethal injection, with less risk of complications.



The Clearfield Republican's bill would make the firing squad the default method of execution if Utah is unable to obtain lethal injection drugs 30 days before an execution.



For years, states used a three-drug combination to execute inmates, but European drugmakers have refused to sell the drugs to prisons and corrections departments out of opposition to the death penalty.



That move has led states to use different types, combinations and doses of lethal drugs, but those methods have been challenged in court.



"We potentially could have a very costly legal battle ourselves if we don't have a backup plan for this," Ray said.



Utah stopped allowing inmates to choose a firing-squad execution in 2004, citing the excessive media attention it gave prisoners. Those sentenced to death before the law changed still have the option of choosing it.



It was last used in 2010 when Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by five police officers with .30-caliber Winchester rifles.



Ray said those opposed to his bill are opposed to the death penalty in general, and he's open to a broader discussion about that at another time.



After discussing Ray's bill for about half an hour, a House law enforcement committee voted 5-4 to approve the measure, with three Republicans and one Democrat voting against it. Two committee members missed the vote.



Rep. Marc Roberts, R-Santaquin, voted against the bill and said he wasn't convinced it was the best backup plan for the state.



The proposal now goes to the full House. It must also be approved by the Senate and Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican.



Ray told members of the committee that he met with the governor.



"He'll sign the bill," Ray said. "He supports having a backup plan."



Gov. Gary Herbert's spokesman, Marty Carpenter, said the governor and Ray discussed in August the possibility of the state having trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs sometime in the future.



"In that conservation, the governor did not commit to signing Rep. Ray's bill," Carpenter said. "He does not commit to signing bills that he hasn't read or seen."



Carpenter said the governor supported Ray's "efforts to try to address the situation, to try to address the potential situation that the state would be in."



Kent Hart, executive director of Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, described in detail to lawmakers the process of an execution by firing squad, where the inmate is strapped into a chair, wearing a hood and a small target pinned over the heart.



"I just find it chilling that we are actually debating these things," said Hart, who has represented several inmates on Utah's death row.



Several inmates on death row in Utah have opted to die by gunfire instead of lethal injection in Utah, but they are all several years away from exhausting the appeals of their death sentences.

