Firing squad bill passes Idaho Senate, heads to governor's desk

BOISE — The Idaho Senate on Wednesday voted 28-7 on a bill to establish the firing squad the state's primary method of execution.

As of a 2023 law, the state currently uses the firing squad as a secondary method if lethal injection is unavailable.

House Bill 37 heads to the governor's desk, and if it goes into effect, would make Idaho the only state in the U.S. to use firing squad as its primary execution method.

The bill would go into effect July 1, 2026.

Senate sponsor Sen. Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, said this would give the corrections department time to finish a remodel on a facility to carry out these executions. The Legislature in 2023 appropriated $750,000 for the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) to remodel the F-Block in its maximum security facility in Boise for use of the firing squad.

Ricks and other who spoke in favor of the bill noted the failed execution of Thomas Creech in February 2024 in which the medical team called it off after repeatedly attempts to find a vein, the Associated Press reported. In 2022, the death warrant for Gerald Pizzuto was canceled because the state failed to obtain the chemicals needed for lethal injection.

Ricks argued that the firing squad would be more humane because it is quicker and more certain.

"I am asking for the victims and their families that you support this, and bring justice more quickly," Ricks said.

Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, was the only Republican to debate against the bill.

He said he understood that it was a problem that the state struggled to obtain the chemicals needed, but that moving to the firing squad was a "big mistake."

"The optics of that mistake, I think will unfortunately became readily apparent in time," Foreman said. "Projecting a piece of metal at 3,200 feet per second, give or take, through the human body is anything but humane. I can say that because I've seen it. I wished I hadn't seen it."

Foreman is an Air Force combat veteran and retired Moscow police officer.

He said that a potential botched firing squad execution would be "more graphic, more mentally, psychologically devastating than any botched attempt with a lethal drug."

"The claim is that it's instantaneous," Foreman said. "Well, yes, sometimes it is. Sometimes it is not. And if you've seen that, I think you would change your mind on how you're about to vote."

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, argued that the move was setting Idaho back. She highlighted its history of use to discourage desertion during the Civil War and quoted a history professor who said they were used to create "a public spectacle, a vision of terror."

"I think this is a move backward," Wintrow said. "It's barbaric."

Rep. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, argued in favor of the bill, saying that the crimes committed by those on death row were also "barbaric" and that the method would be instantaneous.

"It's an act of mercy, death by firing squad," Lenney said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Kelly Anthon, R-Rupert, also argued that the severity of crimes committed by those on death row warranted justice be served. He highlighted convicted child murderer Joseph Duncan, who was sentenced to death in 2008 for the kidnapping and murder of a northern Idaho 9-year-old boy, and killing other children.

"It will never leave my mind what this man did," Anthon said. "... I do think we think of it (the firing squad) as something that has been mentioned on the floor as maybe something backward, but I think we think of it in terms of what we've seen on the movies. But again, as I think of Joseph Duncan, I frankly don't care. I just don't care. And I think there has to be justice."

Idaho is one of five states that authorizes use of a firing squad, although the other states all name another method as the primary, information from the Death Penalty Information Center shows. Utah is the only state in the past 50 years to carry out an execution with a firing squad, which it did most recently 2010. However, South Carolina is scheduled to execute a death row inmate by firing squad on Friday, after the condemned inmate Brad Sigmon chose the method, the Associated Press reported.

Idaho currently has nine inmates under a death sentence.

HB 37 previously passed the House in a 58-11 vote, and will now go to Gov. Brad Little for signature, veto, or to let go into effect with a signature.