Ida­ho becomes first state to pre­fer death by fir­ing squad for exe­cu­tions

Ida­ho Gov. Brad Lit­tle signed his name on a bill Wednes­day mak­ing Ida­ho the only state in the U.S. to have a fir­ing squad des­ig­nat­ed as the pre­ferred exe­cu­tion method for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, begin­ning next year.

The governor’s action comes less than a week after Brad Sig­mon, 67, of South Car­oli­na, was exe­cut­ed by way of a fir­ing squad for killing his ex-girlfriend’s par­ents with a base­ball bat in 2001.

Sig­mon was pro­nounced dead near­ly three min­utes after being shot by three vol­un­teer prison employ­ees last Fri­day – a method used for the first time in 15 years in the U.S.

The Ida­ho States­man report­ed that Ida­ho has nine pris­on­ers on death row, though the death penal­ty has not been car­ried out in the state in over a dozen years.

IDAHO BEEFS UP FIRING SQUAD AS BRYAN KOHBERGER TRIAL NEARS

Last year, the state was unable to exe­cute Thomas Eugene Creech, one of the longest-serv­ing death row inmates in the U.S. Med­ical per­son­nel admin­is­ter­ing the lethal injec­tion failed to estab­lish an IV line despite try­ing for rough­ly an hour.

The bill’s track­ing sheet shows that over two-thirds of the Repub­li­can-con­trolled leg­is­la­ture sup­port­ed the mea­sure, which, along with mak­ing death by fir­ing squad the pre­ferred method, also kept lethal injec­tion as the state’s back­up method.

Fox News Dig­i­tal has reached out to Little’s office for com­ment on the mat­ter.

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Lit­tle approved a law in 2023 to add exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad as the state’s back­up exe­cu­tion method, though at the time he said his pre­ferred method was by lethal injec­tion.

Ida­ho, then became the fifth state in the coun­try to legal­ize the prac­tice, fol­low­ing Utah, Okla­homa, South Car­oli­na, and Mis­sis­sip­pi.

This time around, bill spon­sor Rep. Bruce Skaug, who pre­vi­ous­ly pushed for leg­is­la­tion that restored the fir­ing squad as a back­up option to lethal injec­tion, argued that the botched lethal injec­tion of Creech last year high­lights prob­lems with that method.

IDAHO’S MOVE TO RESURRECT FIRING SQUAD ‘MAKES SENSE’ AS ‘QUICKEST, SUREST’ DEATH PENALTY OPTION, EXPERT SAYS

The new­ly legal­ized exe­cu­tion method could impact the state’s eight cur­rent death row inmates and pos­si­bly the future Uni­ver­si­ty of Ida­ho col­lege mur­ders sus­pect Bryan Kohberg­er. 

Lit­tle signed the bill as pros­e­cu­tors have said they will seek the death penal­ty for Kohberg­er if he is con­vict­ed. His tri­al is sched­uled for lat­er this year, and he faces four charges of first-degree mur­der and anoth­er charge of felony bur­glary.

A judge entered not-guilty pleas on his behalf at his arraign­ment. 

Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz and Stepheny Price con­tributed to this report.