Idaho Governor Signs Legislation Authorizing Firing Squad

On March 12, 2025, Idaho Governor Brad Little (pic­tured) signed House Bill 37 into law, mak­ing the fir­ing squad the state’s pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion. In a state­ment to Catholic News Agency, Gov. Little said, ​“I have long made clear my sup­port of cap­i­tal punishment…My sign­ing of [this bill] is con­sis­tent with my sup­port of the Idaho Legislature’s actions in set­ting the poli­cies around meth­ods of exe­cu­tion in the state of Idaho.” The bill, which takes effect on July 1, 2026, passed both cham­bers of the Idaho Legislature by wide mar­gins, with a vote of 28 – 7 in the Senate and 58 – 11 in the House. Just three Republican law­mak­ers joined all 15 of their Democratic col­leagues in vot­ing against the bill. As of November 2024, the Idaho Department of Corrections had not begun work on con­struc­tion of a secured facil­i­ty for exe­cu­tions via fir­ing squad, with recent esti­mates for the pend­ing work run­ning as high as $950,000. 

Five states — Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah — allow for exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad. Idaho is the only state that autho­rizes fir­ing squad as its pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion. On March 7, 2025, South Carolina exe­cut­ed Brad Sigmon by fir­ing squad, the state’s first-ever exe­cu­tion by this method and the first exe­cu­tion of its kind in the U.S. since 2010. Per South Carolina law, Mr. Sigmon was tasked with elect­ing his method of exe­cu­tion and ulti­mate­ly chose death by fir­ing squad because of unan­swered con­cerns with the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col and its more than 100-year-old electric chair.

In 2023, the Idaho leg­is­la­ture passed a bill autho­riz­ing fir­ing squad exe­cu­tions as an alter­na­tive method if lethal injec­tion was unavail­able. Under the new bill, the fir­ing squad is now the pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion and lethal injec­tion is the alter­na­tive.