BOISE, Idaho — The cost of implementing a bill that seeks to make the firing squad Idaho’s backup execution method has more than doubled since it was last reviewed by the state prisons system, according to a spokesperson for the agency.
The Idaho Department of Correction’s initial estimate to build out the venue for such an execution, as an alternative to lethal injection, is $750,000, spokesperson Jeff Ray told the Idaho Statesman. In 2014, when the department last considered the firing squad, costs were expected to reach at least $300,000, which IDOC determined “would take too much time and money” in choosing not to go forward with the plan, Ray said at the time.
State Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Nampa Republican, last week proposed the bill to use a firing squad as the state’s reserve execution method. Idaho previously offered it as an alternative to lethal injection, but removed death by firing squad in 2009 as the controversial method went unused.
