Idaho became the only state in America to make the firing squad its default method of execution on July 1, completing a newly built $1.2 million execution chamber and unveiling detailed protocols for how condemned inmates will face a team of volunteer law enforcement marksmen armed with.308-caliber rifles.
Eight death row inmates, seven men and one woman, all convicted of murder, now sit at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise, where the state has spent more than $900,000 on construction and $314,000 on architectural design and engineering to prepare the chamber. The state also purchased five Daniel Defense DD5-P rifles, along with scopes, suppressors, and bipods, for more than $24,000.
The move follows years of dysfunction with lethal injection, not just in Idaho, but across the country. And the immediate catalyst was impossible to ignore.
In February 2024, Idaho tried to execute convicted murderer Thomas Eugene Creech by lethal injection. Execution staff spent roughly an hour attempting to establish an intravenous line, puncturing Creech multiple times before abandoning the procedure entirely. It was the state's first execution attempt since June 2012, and it failed in the most basic way possible, they couldn't find a vein.
Republican Gov. Brad Little signed two firing squad bills into law in the aftermath. The first established the firing squad as an execution option. A 2025 follow-up bill delayed implementation to give the Idaho Department of Correction time to design and build the new chamber. The law took effect July 1, and Fox News reported that the change makes Idaho the first and only state to prefer the firing squad over lethal injection as its primary method.
The Creech debacle was not an isolated incident. States across the country have struggled for years to obtain lethal injection drugs, faced legal challenges over their protocols, and watched executions go wrong in ways that drew public scrutiny and constitutional litigation. Idaho decided to stop fighting that battle.
The protocols the state unveiled are precise. Six volunteer law enforcement officers will compose each firing squad, three primary shooters, two alternates, and one team leader. All must hold at least three years of Peace Officer Standards and Training certification and demonstrate near-perfect marksmanship. None may have disciplinary findings involving excessive force or firearms.
The shooters will stand roughly 10 yards from the condemned inmate, aiming through an opening in a protective wall about one foot wide. A target will be placed over the inmate's heart. Three officers will fire.308-caliber rounds simultaneously.
An EKG will monitor the inmate for up to two minutes after the shots. If necessary, a second volley can be ordered. The condemned inmate will be offered sedatives beforehand.
Training requirements are rigorous. Once an execution warrant is signed, squad members will train weekly and conduct multiple full rehearsals before the scheduled date. Ongoing quarterly live-fire exercises will keep the team prepared between warrants.
Only the prison director and deputy director will know the identities of the volunteer shooters. State law makes those identities permanently confidential. IDOC Director Bree Derrick previously stated that prison leadership deliberately chose not to rely on corrections officers to pull the triggers, opting instead for outside law enforcement volunteers. The agency even explored a remote-operated firing system, but that system never materialized.
Derrick issued a statement to the Idaho Statesman framing the new system as a matter of institutional responsibility:
"The Idaho Department of Correction recognizes the gravity of carrying out a court-ordered execution and the responsibility that comes with it. Our procedures are designed to ensure that any execution is conducted in a secure, orderly, and dignified manner while safeguarding the rights of all individuals involved and maintaining the safety and security of staff, witnesses, and the public."
The IDOC confirmed its readiness. As Newsmax reported, the department stated it would "be prepared to carry out an execution order after July 1."
Gov. Little, who is seeking a third term in November, signed both bills without public hesitation. The political calculus in Idaho is straightforward: the state's voters overwhelmingly support capital punishment, and the Creech disaster made the status quo untenable.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, offered the predictable objection. She told reporters:
"Every new execution method in history has been introduced with the promise that it will be foolproof and 'more humane' than the previous method. Unfortunately, those promises have always been broken."
Maher added that Idaho officials had spent more than $1 million of taxpayer money implementing "a firing squad, a method of execution that has already proven to be as flawed as any other."
The criticism lands on thin ground. The firing squad's track record, while not spotless, is considerably shorter on botched outcomes than lethal injection's growing list of failures. The method is direct. It does not depend on pharmaceutical supply chains, IV access, or the cooperation of drug manufacturers who have increasingly refused to sell their products for executions.
Republican state Sen. Doug Ricks, the bill's sponsor, put it plainly when the legislation moved through the Idaho Senate. As the AP reported, Ricks said:
"One thing about this method, it's pretty sure. It's not going to be something that gets done part way."
That is a direct rebuke of what happened to Creech, an execution literally done "part way."
Idaho is not acting in isolation. South Carolina carried out its first firing squad execution in March 2025, ending a 15-year gap in the method's use nationwide. Breitbart noted that Idaho's law also adds child rape to the list of capital crimes, making it one of only three states, along with Florida and Tennessee, to treat that offense as potentially punishable by death. That provision could force the Supreme Court to revisit its 2008 ruling barring the death penalty for child rapists.
Meanwhile, the debate over capital punishment itself continues to fracture along familiar lines. Newsmax reported that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has called to abolish the death penalty entirely. Fordham Law School professor Deborah Denno cautioned that "human beings are conducting this, and human beings have emotions and feelings."
Those are fair observations. But they are not arguments against accountability. They are arguments for doing the job carefully, which is exactly what Idaho's detailed training regimen, strict qualification standards, and confidentiality protections are designed to accomplish.
Several questions hang over the new system. No execution date has been publicly scheduled under the firing squad protocol. It remains unclear whether Thomas Eugene Creech, whose botched lethal injection prompted the entire policy shift, is still on death row or whether his legal situation has changed. The identities of the eight current death row inmates have not been widely publicized. And while the state spent heavily on the chamber and equipment, the ongoing cost of quarterly training, weekly pre-execution sessions, and full rehearsals has not been disclosed.
The sedatives to be offered to condemned inmates before execution have not been specified. And the question of whether any inmate will mount a constitutional challenge to the firing squad method itself remains open.
Idaho tried lethal injection. It failed, publicly, painfully, and at taxpayer expense. The state's elected officials responded by choosing a method that is harder to watch but harder to botch. They built the infrastructure, wrote the protocols, recruited the volunteers, and passed the laws.
Critics will call it barbaric. But the families of murder victims might call the alternative, a state that sentences killers to death and then cannot carry out the sentence, something worse.
If a state is going to have the death penalty, it owes the public a system that works. Idaho, at least, is trying to deliver one.
