“You’ll be OK. I mean, you’ll be dead, but you’ll be OK.”

Dr. James Williams, arguably America’s leading expert on the firing squad. He has testified in courtrooms across the U.S. about the effectiveness of the firing squad as a method for executions (always on the side of prisoners, never the state). In an interview with The Marshall Project, Williams explained how he got started in this line of work: “A friend in the firearms community introduced me to death row public defenders, and I had the right resume: I had trained police and military on how to shoot more effectively … I also dealt with countless gunshot wounds as an emergency room doctor. In 2016, some men on death row were thinking about asking for the firing squad, but wanted to know what would happen when the bullets hit their body. I met with two of them. I felt a sense of privilege, to meet them face-to-face as human beings and say they do not need to fear a prolonged and painful death as they might with a lethal injection. I said, in effect, ‘You’ll be OK. I mean, you’ll be dead, but you’ll be OK.’” (The Marshall Project – Feb. 4, 2025)