The Idaho State Senate on Monday voted 24-11 to pass a bill aimed at reviving the firing squad as a death penalty option amid a supply shortage of lethal injection drugs.
HB 186, which passed the State House of Representatives with a 50-15-5 vote earlier this month, gives authorities the option to order death by firing squad if lethal injection drugs are unavailable within five days of the issuance of a death warrant.
The bill will go to Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s desk next. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning.
Four other states have an option for the firing squad, although its use is extremely rare, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Those states are Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah and South Carolina, and together they have killed three condemned prisoners by firing squad since 1976.
Utah brought back firing squads in 2015 due to its own struggles with lethal injections. The practice was legal in Idaho until 2009 but had never been used by the time lawmakers got rid of it.
Idaho currently has eight death row inmates – and prosecutors have not yet ruled out seeking the death penalty in a high-profile quadruple murder case that left four University of Idaho students dead in November.
Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Nampa Republican and also a University of Idaho alumnus, introduced the bill in late February, weeks after police arrested a suspect.
Bryan Kohberger is being held at the Latah County Jail in Moscow on four charges of first-degree murder and another of felony burglary.
Kohberger is accused of stalking an off-campus rental home at least 12 times before allegedly sneaking in around 4 a.m. on a Saturday, after the victims had spent the night out partying with friends, then ambushing them with a large knife. Around 9 a.m., hours after the murders but before surviving roommates woke up and called for help, police say he drove by one last time.
Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin all suffered multiple stab wounds, according to the Latah County coroner Cathy Mabbutt. Some of them may have been sleeping at the start of the attack.
Police found a Ka-Bar knife sheath next to Mogen’s body that they say had Kohberger’s DNA on it.
His next court date was scheduled for June 26, when he is expected to challenge the evidence used to arrest him. He has not yet entered a plea.
Fox News’ Paul Best and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
