isn't this part of the idea with firing squads, to make the guilt of execution not fall on any one person?
it actually goes even further than that
traditionally one member of the firing squad is given a rifle with blanks instead of live rounds - in theory this means every single one of them can choose to believe "i didn't actually shoot them" if it helps them sleep at night
in practice however every member of a firing squad can immediately tell if they fired a real bullet or a blank because there's a massive difference in recoil between the two
when Utah did a firing squad execution in 2010, instead of blanks the "rifle of the innocent man" was given a dummy cartridge with a wax bullet so the recoil would match the others, thus preserving the full diffusion of responsibility across the entire firing squad
In the moment, when firing one shot, it is debatable how much the difference in recoil matters in preserving the illusion of deniability, especially in the present day US where firing squad executions are extremely infrequent.
