BOISE, Idaho — A concerted push to allow Idaho to use a firing squad for inmate executions left out a key collaborator — the agency charged with carrying out the state’s death sentences.
House Bill 186 is premised on the belief that Idaho’s death penalty has become toothless. State officials say drugs to perform lethal injections — the only permitted execution method in Idaho — are unobtainable. A Senate panel is expected to take up the firing squad bill in the next week after House lawmakers overwhelmingly passed it Friday.
But the proposed law came as a surprise to state prison officials. They learned of the effort to restore the firing squad just days before it was publicly announced, Idaho Department of Correction spokesperson Jeff Ray said.
