Idaho Legislators are moving to bolster their recently revamped firing squad as the state’s main means of execution with eight currently on death row and the looming trial of student-murder suspect Bryan Kohberger.
“I, along with many others, believe that the firing squad is safer, has fewer appeals and is more humane than other forms of execution,” Idaho state Rep. Bruce Skaug, who introduced the bill, told Fox News Digital. “We had a failed lethal injection attempt in Idaho last year.”
In March 2023, the state revived the firing squad as a backup option when lethal injection, a problematic and increasingly controversial method of execution, is not available.
IDAHO SERIAL KILLER SURVIVES LETHAL INJECTION ATTEMPT, STIRTING RENEWED PRESSURE FOR FIRING SQUAD
A chair sits in an execution chamber at the Utah State Penitentiary on June 18, 2010, after Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad in Draper, Utah. Idaho lawmakers passed legislation on March 20, 2023, that would authorize the use of firing squads if the state cannot obtain the drugs needed for its lethal injection program. They are now considering making it the state’s main means of execution. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool, File)
Then last year, convicted a serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech survived the lethal injection, sparking renewed interest in the firing squad.
The new move would make the firing squad the state’s primary means of capital punishment — at no additional cost to taxpayers, since execution chamber funding was included in the previous bill.
Kohberger’s defense, meanwhile, has sought to overturn the death penalty and is challenging the warrants and DNA evidence used in his arrest.
Two days of hearings on defense motions in the quadruple-murder case against the suspect in the stabbing of a University of Idaho student ended without any formal rulings, but they did reveal new details ahead of a highly anticipated trial later this year. The judge is expected to make his decisions within a few weeks.
Bryan Kohberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November, looks at his attorney, Public Defender Anne Taylor, during a hearing in Latah County Circuit Court in Moscow, Idaho, on January 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool)
Fordham Law School professor Deborah Denno, a leading expert on the death penalty in the US, previously told Fox News Digital that the firing squad is widely accepted as the most effective and humane means of execution.
“We had three modern executions by firing squad, and they went as planned, and the prisoner died quickly and with dignity,” she said after Creech’s botched execution. “So I think that needs to be emphasized.”
Lethal injections have been plagued by accidents, drug shortages and failed attempts. Creech was the fourth person to survive execution on a lathe in just a few years.
IDAHO GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW ALLOWING FIRING PLATOONS
An execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution is shown as security guard Randy Blades looks on in Boise, Idaho, on October 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Jessie L. Bonner, File)
Denno was in favor of allowing prisoners to choose the method of execution.
“I have a hunch that more inmates would choose the firing squad,” she told Fox News Digital, noting that Prisoners of Tennessee began to choose electrocution over lethal injection when given the choice.
Only four states have a firing squad option, though its use is extremely rare, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which also describes lethal injection as the “most missed” way of execution.
Matt Mangino, a former Pennsylvania prosecutor who wrote a book on the death penalty, “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010,” said that in the current political climate, he believes Idaho’s new bill will pass.
The chair to which John Albert Taylor was tied during a scheduled execution is displayed at Unitas State Prison in Utah on January 24, 1996. Taylor chose to die by firing squad of five men instead of lethal injection. (Lee Celano/Reuters)
Lethal injections look modern and even “clinical,” he said, but they can be much more gruesome than they appear. One of the drugs in a typical injection cocktail is a paralytic that prevents the condemned from convulsing—for the witness’s comfort, not his own.
Madison Mogen smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and two other housemates in Goncalves’ latest Instagram post, shared a day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
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Idaho currently has eight inmates on death row, including Creech, and is preparing for a high-profile trial in the stabbing murders of four students. The suspect is Bryan Kohberger, a 30-year-old former doctor of criminology. student, could face the death penalty if convicted.
Kohberger is scheduled to stand trial later this year in connection with the murders of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, also 20.
The draft law on the firing squad remains in the commission. A hearing and public testimony have not yet been scheduled, Skaug said.
