Idaho governor signs bill making firing squad the state’s primary execution method

Idaho’s governor signed into law a bill Wednesday making the firing squad the state’s primary method of execution.

Joan Varsek, a spokesperson for Republican Governor Brad Little, confirmed the news to The Independent.

“I have long made clear my support of capital punishment. My signing of House Bill 37 is consistent with my support of the Idaho Legislature’s actions in setting the policies around methods of execution in the state of Idaho,” Little said in a written statement.

“As governor, my job is to follow the law and ensure that lawful criminal sentences are carried out as ordered by the courts.”

Idaho will become the first state with such a policy once the law goes into effect on July 1, 2026. Four other states — Utah, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Mississippi — allow firing squad executions. None of the others, however, use firing squads as a primary execution method. Only four people have been put to death via firing squad in the U.S. in the last half century.

Idaho passed a bill in 2023 cementing firing squads as a backup method if lethal injection is not feasible. According to House Bill 37, lethal injection will become the alternative method once the firing squad law goes into effect.

Idaho currently has nine people — one woman and eight men — on death row. One of the men is Chad Daybell, who was sentenced to death in June for killing his first wife, and the two children of his second wife, Lori Vallow.

The state hasn’t executed anyone since 2012, when Richard Albert Leavitt was put to death by lethal injection.

Last year, Idaho attempted to execute 74-year-old Thomas Creech, a serial killer convicted of murdering five people. That attempt failed because executioners were unable to establish an intravenous line after trying eight times. Creech’s veins kept collapsing, department officials said.

Obtaining lethal injection drugs has become extremely difficult in recent years. In 2011, the European Union banned the export of drugs for executions. It’s also difficult to recruit physicians to administer the fatal dose in executions.

It’s not yet known if firing squads will make the process easier.

The Independent recently reported that Idaho Department of Correction officials are struggling to contract designers to build or renovate their execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution to accommodate firing squads. Estimates for the project have reached $1.2 million.

But just last week, South Carolina officials managed to put 67-year-old Brad Sigmon to death via firing squad, the first execution of its kind in the nation in 15 years. A three-person team of volunteer Corrections Department employees fired .308 Winchester TAP URBAN bullets aimed at Sigmon’s heart.

A physician confirmed his death three minutes after shots were fired.

Sigmon had told his spiritual advisor, Reverend Hillary Taylor, he didn’t want to be a “guinea pig” for the state’s problematic lethal injection procedures.

Six states — Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana and North Carolina — have a de fac?to mora?to?ri?um on exe?cu?tions due to challenges with lethal injections. Pro-death penalty states without moratoriums face lengthy legal battles as inmates fight the constitutionality of lethal injection.

As a result, old and new methods, like the firing squad, are popping up across the country. In January of last year, Alabama became the first state in the country to execute a death-row inmate using nitrogen hypoxia.

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have also adopted the method, but haven’t used it.

During public comments regarding the Idaho legislation, several residents voiced their support for the bill.

Daniel Murphy, of Boise, suggested Idaho residents might even donate bullets needed for executions.

“Take six rounds of [5.56x45mm] and eight rifles ... The job is complete,” Murphy flatly stated.

Meanwhile, Kate Lopez, a Twin Falls resident, questioned how firing squad executions would work.

“As I understand it, death by firing squad requires a hood over the head, restraints on the limbs, targets to the heart,” she said, unknowingly describing Sigmon’s execution.

In a letter to Little and other state officials, Andrew C. Erstad, chair of the Idaho Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, told the governor: “What is lawful and what is ethical are two separate inquiries; acting lawfully may not equate to acting ethically.”

He informed the Department of Correction that members of his group would not be participating in the design or construction of the firing squad facility.