The shooting squad could become Idaho's main way of implementing this week under the bill heading to the governor's desk.
The Idaho Senate passed the bill Wednesday, and if signed by Gov. Brad Little, it will come into effect next year.
Currently, if state corrections officers are unable to obtain the medication needed for a fatal injection, the shooting squad will serve as a backup method for Idaho.
The bill's sponsor, Doug Rix, said the law was spurred last year by Idaho's failed attempt to run Thomas Eugene Creech, which failed to find a suitable vein for the IV line. Ricks said shooting was a more effective and humane method, and he suggested that the state could use machines or “electronic trigger methods” to eliminate the need for human volunteers to pull the trigger.
“One thing about this method is that I'm pretty sure,” Rix said at a bill hearing last month. “It's not going to be something that's going to happen along the way.”
If passed to the law, the bill will take effect on July 1, 2026.
Four other states, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah, allow squads to be fired under certain circumstances, but this method has been rarely used in recent years. South Carolina is set to carry out its first US enforcement on Friday by firing the squad for the first time in 15 years due to the scheduled execution of Brad Sigmon.
Idaho's federal advocacy service, which represents many of Idaho's death row inmates, declined to comment on the bill.
An Idaho Department of Corrections official did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The prison has recently remodeled the fatal injection room to include spaces where execution teams can insert IV lines near the heart if they are unable to use more invasive methods.
Republican Sen. Daniel Foreman, a retired police officer and former Air Force veteran, was the only Republican to oppose the bill on Wednesday. He had seen shooting deaths and said they were “not humanitarian.”
“The outcome of a failed firing execution is more graphic, more mentally and psychologically devastating than other failed firing methods,” Foreman said.
But Republican Sen. Brian Renee said lawmakers should remember why the death penalty is imposed.
“If we're talking about fear, and if we're talking about the wild bar, I think we should remember why this guy is in the death line in the first place,” he said.
In the United States, according to 2016, 144 prisoner enforcement was carried out by firing squads. Legal Review Article. Since the death penalty was restored in the 1970s, Utah has been The only state that fired the squad and executed peopleAccording to the Death Penalty Information Center.
