Mega Edition: Idaho Reinstates The Firing Squad In The Wake Of The Murders In Moscow (8/18/26)

In the months after the November 2022 murders of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, Idaho lawmakers moved to restore the firing squad as an available method of execution, a development that inevitably became part of the broader conversation surrounding Bryan Kohberger's capital murder case. Idaho had eliminated the firing squad as an execution option in 2009, but the state was struggling to obtain the drugs necessary to carry out lethal injections. In March 2023, Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 186, which authorized execution by firing squad when lethal injection was unavailable; the law took effect July 1, 2023. The immediate legislative push was driven primarily by Idaho's inability to execute longtime death-row inmate Gerald Pizzuto because officials could not obtain lethal-injection chemicals, rather than being written specifically in response to the Idaho Four murders.

The timing nevertheless gave the law enormous significance in the Kohberger case because prosecutors later sought the death penalty against him, raising the possibility that a man accused of one of Idaho's most notorious crimes could ultimately face an execution method the state had just brought back. Idaho went even further in 2025, when Little signed legislation making the firing squad the state's primary execution method beginning July 1, 2026, rather than merely a backup when lethal injection was unavailable. That change came after continued problems with lethal injection, including Idaho's failed 2024 attempt to execute Thomas Creech when medical personnel could not establish an IV line. So while the Idaho Four murders did not themselves cause Idaho to reinstate the firing squad, the restoration occurred directly in the shadow of the Kohberger prosecution and became intertwined with public discussion about what a death sentence in his case could actually have meant.


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