Idaho GOP Channels Trump With Plan to Bring Back Firing Squad
The Idaho state legislature banned execution by firing squad in 2009. The nation has changed quite a bit in the past 15 years, though, and the state’s Republicans are now poised to bring back the practice.
The state’s Republican-controlled Senate on Monday passed a bill that would allow people on death row to be executed by firing squad when a lethal injection isn’t available. The latter method hasn’t been totally reliable, both in availability due to drug supply shortages and in effectiveness as it has led to botched executions. Governor Brad Little is expected to sign the bill into law.
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Republican State Sen. Doug Ricks, who co-sponsored the bill, argues that the eight people on the state’s death row simply must be executed. “The people on death row have been convicted by a jury of their peers, but unless we have an alternative method to carry out these sentences, then we essentially have no death penalty in Idaho,” he said on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.
Ricks does have a soft spot for the people who will have to be doing the firing. “I realize there’s a toll on the people that have to carry this out,” he said. “It’s emotional for them, too.”
Idaho is one of 27 states where the death penalty is still legal, and is expected to join Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah in allowing for execution by firing squad.
Republican State Sen. Daniel D. Foreman opposes the death penalty and opposes the bill. “It’s really beneath the dignity of the state,” He said. “I understand the state has an issue on its hands. But I think when it’s all said and done, they’ll wish they never went down this road.”
The number of executions in the United States has been decreasing over the past 30 years, with 18 people being executed by the states in 2022. The leading Republican candidates for president want to see more more of them.
Donald Trump has openly mused about ramping up the use of firing squads and other barbaric methods of execution should he win. He seems to favor these methods not because lethal injections are unreliable, but so he can put on a show for his bloodthirsty supporters. The former president has even called privately for executions to be televised. Ron DeSantis, meanwhile, wants to overhaul Florida’s capital punishment procedure to make it easier for people to be sentenced to death.
It isn’t idle musing — at least not from Trump. Rolling Stone reported in January that the former president did all he could to execute as many people as possible before he left office. The U.S. had carried out only three federal executions in 60 years before Trump put 13 people to death in six months.
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