Starting on July 1, Idaho will become the only state in the union that uses a firing squad as its primary option to fulfill its death penalty obligations. Idaho will also become one of only three states that include child rape as a death penalty crime.
Currently, the firing squad option is Idaho’s second option after lethal injection.
Five states currently offer firing squads as a death penalty option. Last March, South Carolina executed 67-year-old Brad Sigmon by firing squad. Sigmon had been on death row for nearly a quarter century for beating his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat in 2001.
Prior to Sigmon, no one had been executed by firing squad in the U.S. since 2010.
The most controversial part of this July 1 legal change is, believe it or not, Idaho adding the rape of a child under age 12 to its list of death penalty crimes.
In 2008, by a five-to-four decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for child rapists was not proportional to the crime and struck it down as a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
