BOISE, ID – Unless Gov. Brad Little vetoes a bill that passed the Idaho Legislature, Idaho could become the only state to fatally shoot death row inmates as its main execution method.
If passed into law, House Bill 37 would make the firing squad the primary death penalty method in Idaho.
Only five states allow firing squads for executions. But the firing squad isn’t the primary death penalty method in any of those states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Both chambers of the Idaho Legislature widely approved the bill. The Senate passed the bill on a 28-7 vote Wednesday, a month after the House passed it on a 58-11 vote.
Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, and over a dozen other House Republican lawmakers.
Nine people are on death row in Idaho, according to the Idaho Department of Correction.
Supporters of the bill say the firing squad is a humane execution method. Using firing squads as the main execution method, supporters say, would avoid Idaho’s issues obtaining lethal injection chemicals and dealing with decades of legal appeals that have delayed executions.
When the bill is transmitted to the governor, he has five days to decide on it. He can sign it into law, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it.
If passed into law, the bill would take effect July 1, 2026.
The bill directs the Idaho Department of Correction director to develop procedures for the firing squad procedures.
Skaug has told lawmakers Idaho’s firing squad execution method would be “mechanized.” Idaho Department of Correction spokesperson Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic told the Sun in February the agency is considering using “a remote-operated weapons system alongside traditional firing squad methods.” But the agency had not finalized its policies and procedures, she said.
‘If you’ve ever seen that, I think you would change your mind,’ Sen. Foreman says
All six Democrats in the Idaho Senate voted against the bill — joined by one Republican.
Ricks, who cosponsored the bill, echoed many of Skaug’s arguments in favor of the bill.
“I view the firing squad as a more humane way to carry out executions for those on death row, because it is quick and certain,” Ricks said. “It brings justice for the victims and their families in a more expeditious manner.”
Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Viola, a veteran and retired police officer, disagreed.
“Projecting a piece of metal at 3,200 feet-per-second, give or take, through the human body is anything but humane,” he told Idaho senators. “I can say that because I’ve seen it. I wished I hadn’t seen it.”
“The claims that it’s instantaneous. Well, yes — sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. And if you’ve ever seen that, I think you would change your mind on how you’re about to vote,” Foreman continued.
Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, called death by firing squad “instantaneous” and said he thinks “it’s an act of mercy.”
Senate Pro Tem Kelly Anthon, R-Burley, recited a quote in a 2017 dissent by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, widely regarded as a liberal justice, who cast executions by firing squads as more humane.
“In addition to being near instant, death by shooting may also be comparatively painless,” Sotomayor wrote, according to the Associated Press.
Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, called the bill “a move backward.”
“It’s barbaric, and it unfortunately puts the optics of Idaho in a place that I don’t think we care to be,” she said.
Firing squad was already allowed in Idaho. Bill would make lethal injection the back-up execution method
In 2023, Idaho passed a law to allow firing squads for executions. But that law only allowed firing squads as a back-up execution method when lethal injection — the primary execution method in Idaho law — is unavailable.
Under the bill, lethal injection would become the alternative execution method in Idaho.
Only five states — Idaho, Utah, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Mississippi — allow firing squads for execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In the United States, 144 inmate executions have been carried out by firing squads, according to a 2016 law review article.
Since the death penalty became reinstated in the 1970s, Utah is the only state to have executed people by firing squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In South Carolina, death row inmate Brad Sigmon is set to die by firing squad on Friday, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported. Sigmon requested he be killed by firing squad over concerns about whether lethal injection is truly a painless death, his attorney say.
Renovating Idaho’s execution chamber to allow for firing squads will likely cost more than the $750,000 lawmakers previously appropriated, lawmakers say. But Skaug has said any extra funds would come from money already in the Department of Correction budget.
This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.