If the United States is going to carry out executions — and public support stands at about 60 percent today — Kozinski suggested returning to an old, highly effective method: the firing squad. “Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time,” he wrote.

In a phone conversation Thursday, Kozinski said he could understand pharmaceutical companies retreating from involvement in capital punishment. “I have some sympathy for the drug manufacturers,” he said. “They’re not in the business of killing people. They’re in the business of healing people.”

Gun makers, on the other hand, widely sell their products to law enforcement agencies. “We as a society accept weapons as a means of carrying out lawful violent activity,” Kozinski added, pointing to the examples of police, military, and security guards.

Of course, an execution by firing squad, unlike lethal injection, would involve blood. But Kozinski concluded, “If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn’t be carrying out executions at all.”