Idaho is preparing to carry out executions by firing squad for the first time in state history, with prison officials saying they are ready to implement a new law that makes the method the state’s primary form of capital punishment beginning July 1.
The move comes more than a year after Idaho’s failed attempt to execute death row inmate Thomas Creech by lethal injection and follows a legislative overhaul that lawmakers said was needed to ensure death sentences can be carried out. Under protocols released this week by the Idaho Department of Correction, volunteer law enforcement officers will serve as firing squad members, making Idaho the only state in the nation to designate execution by firing squad as its primary method.
Eight prisoners are on Idaho’s death row — seven men and one woman — all convicted of murder. Idaho has one of the nation’s smallest death row populations and has not carried out an execution in 14 years. The state’s last execution, by lethal injection, took place in June 2012.
The push to adopt firing squads followed the state’s unsuccessful effort to execute Creech in February 2024. Creech, who was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of fellow inmate David Dale Jensen while already serving four life sentences, survived after members of the execution team were unable to establish an IV line despite repeated attempts.
Prosecutors opposed a bid to commute Creech’s sentence weeks earlier, citing his convictions in five murders across Idaho, California and Oregon and arguing that returning him to the general prison population would endanger other inmates.
After the execution was halted, Federal Defender Services of Idaho criticized the state’s procedures, saying officials repeatedly failed to access Creech’s veins and arguing the incident highlighted concerns about secrecy surrounding Idaho’s execution process.
State prison officials had hoped to avoid using human shooters. Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick previously said the agency explored a remotely operated firing system but was unable to make it work, leaving the state to move forward with a traditional firing squad.
“The Idaho Department of Correction recognizes the gravity of carrying out a court-ordered execution and the responsibility that comes with it,” Derrick said in a released statement. “The department is committed to fulfilling this responsibility with professionalism, respect, and strict adherence to the law. 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.”
Under the new procedures, the firing squad will consist of three primary shooters and two alternates overseen by a team leader responsible for inspecting, maintaining, and loading the rifles. Volunteers cannot have been disciplined during the previous year for firearms-related issues, use of force, or similar conduct. They also may not be related by blood or marriage to the condemned prisoner, the prisoner’s family, victims or victims’ relatives.
The identities of firing squad members will remain confidential under state law and will be known only to the prison director and a deputy chief.
To qualify, volunteers must successfully complete live-fire testing from at least 7 yards and hit an execution-style target without missing. During an execution, three shooters will fire from approximately 10 yards away, according to department spokesperson Ryan Mortensen.
“Failure to accurately hit the specific target with one round from each IDOC-provided firearm disqualifies the volunteer from selection,” the Idaho execution standard operating procedure approved by Derrick states.
The shooters will fire through a 1-foot opening in a protective wall intended to limit exposure to the execution chamber and reduce the psychological impact on participants, Mortensen said. The department has not decided whether shooters will be seated or standing.
The prison system purchased five Daniel Defense DD5-P .308-caliber firearms equipped with scopes, suppressors and bipods, Mortensen said. Each cost $4,844 with accessories, bringing the total cost to more than $24,000.
Construction to retrofit the execution chamber at the state’s maximum-security prison south of Boise began in May 2025 and has been completed. The project cost more than $1.2 million, including construction, design and engineering expenses. The Idaho Legislature appropriated $750,000 for the project in 2023 when it authorized firing squads as a backup execution method. After lawmakers made firing squads the primary method in 2025, no additional funding was provided.
Idaho is one of 27 states that authorize capital punishment and one of five that permit execution by firing squad, joining Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah. South Carolina carried out three firing squad executions last year, the first use of the method since Utah conducted an execution by firing squad in 2010.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks capital punishment and takes no position on the practice, criticized the state’s investment in the method.
“Every new execution method in history has been introduced with the promise that it will be foolproof and ‘more humane’ than the previous method,” Maher said. “Unfortunately, those promises have always been broken. Idaho officials have now invested more than a million taxpayer dollars to implement a firing squad — a method of execution that has already proven to be as flawed as any other.”
Federal Defender Services of Idaho, which represents most of the state’s death row prisoners, declined to comment on the protocols.
Republican Gov. Brad Little signed both firing squad measures into law. The 2025 legislation delayed implementation to give prison officials time to rebuild the execution chamber.
“While I am signing this bill, it is important to point out that fulfilling justice can and must be done by minimizing stress on corrections personnel,” Little wrote after approving the 2023 law.
Even so, the new protocols place firing squad duties in the hands of law enforcement officers “whose training and experience includes the deployment and proficient use of firearms.”
Bonneville County Sheriff’s Sgt. Bryan Lovell, president of the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police, said officers are not uniquely suited to carry out executions simply because they are trained to use firearms.
“I don’t want people to convolute things about why people become cops, including for carrying out an execution,” he said. “It’s not the goal, and very far from any duties that any law enforcement would be involved in.”
Lovell said officers are trained to use deadly force only in limited circumstances to protect themselves and the public and are no better equipped than corrections officers to cope with the psychological impact of a planned execution.
“You’re talking about the complete opposite end of the spectrum of reasons why deadly force would be used, and that’s something you work to avoid first, if at all possible,” he said.
Under the protocols, firing squad members will participate in at least quarterly training sessions and execution rehearsals. All members of the execution team, including escorts, medical personnel and administrators, must participate in at least four training sessions within a year of a scheduled execution or become ineligible. Weekly training begins once a death warrant is issued, with at least four training sessions and two rehearsals required during the final two days before an execution.
No later than 11 p.m. the night before an execution, the condemned prisoner will be offered a mild sedative and may be offered another dose no later than four hours before the scheduled execution. The prisoner will then be escorted into the chamber, restrained in an execution chair and fitted with a target over the heart. The prison director will read the death warrant, allow the prisoner to make a final statement, and provide an eye covering upon request.
The team leader will then signal the shooters to fire simultaneously. Each firearm will be loaded with a magazine containing a single .308 110-grain TAP round. The director will wait up to two minutes while medical personnel monitor for signs of life and may order a second “volley of fire” before the county coroner enters to pronounce death.
With less than a month before the law takes effect, Mortensen said the department has largely completed facility upgrades, policy development, and operational planning and is nearly ready to carry out a firing-squad execution.
