1960. James W. Rodgers is executed by firing squad in Utah, the last such execution before the temporary nationwide suspension of capital punishment that followed Furman v. Georgia (1972).
1976. Gregg v. Georgia reopens the door to capital punishment nationwide.
1976, December 13. In Gilmore v. Utah the Supreme Court rejects Bessie Gilmore’s next-friend petition, holding that her son knowingly and intelligently waived his federal rights.
1977, January 17. Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah, the first execution in the United States following Gregg.
1978. Idaho adopts lethal injection as a method of execution.
1994. Keith Wells is executed by lethal injection in Idaho, the state’s first execution since 1957.
1996. John Albert Taylor is executed by firing squad in Utah.
1996, January 26. On the day of Taylor’s execution, legislation is introduced in the Utah House of Representatives to eliminate the firing squad. It does not pass that session.
2010, June 10 and 11. The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole hears Ronnie Lee Gardner’s commutation petition. Michael Burdell’s father, his former partner and a close friend ask the board to spare the man who killed him. The board denies commutation.
2010, June 18. Ronnie Lee Gardner is executed by firing squad in Utah, the last such execution in the United States for fifteen years.
2010, June 18. Four bullet holes are later found in the wood panel behind the execution chair.
2011. Paul Ezra Rhoades is executed by lethal injection in Idaho.
2012, June 12. Richard Leavitt is executed by lethal injection in Idaho. It remains the state’s most recent execution. Witnesses were permitted to observe the full process for the first time only because a court ordered it in response to a lawsuit brought by news organizations.
2015. Utah enacts House Bill 11, adding a second trigger to its existing firing squad provision: if the substances required for lethal injection are unavailable on the date specified by the death warrant, the sentence is to be carried out by firing squad.
2021. South Carolina adds the firing squad as an execution option and makes the electric chair, rather than lethal injection, the state’s default method absent an affirmative selection by the condemned.
2022, March. Idaho enacts an execution secrecy law barring disclosure, to the public and to the courts, of the identities, skills, and qualifications of members of an execution team.
2023, March 24. Governor Brad Little signs House Bill 186, authorizing the firing squad in Idaho as an alternative method, available only if lethal injection is unavailable. In the same period, South Carolina’s own execution secrecy law is expanded.
2024, January 25. Alabama executes Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen hypoxia, the first execution by that method in American history. Smith had survived a failed lethal injection attempt in November 2022. This book’s author served as his spiritual adviser.
2024, February 28. Idaho attempts to execute Thomas Creech by lethal injection. The execution team fails, after eight attempts across roughly an hour, to establish a usable IV line, and the execution is called off.
2024, July 31. The South Carolina Supreme Court holds that the electric chair and the firing squad are both constitutional under state law, clearing the way for executions to resume after a thirteen-year pause.
2024, September 20 and November 1. South Carolina executes Freddie Eugene Owens and Richard Bernard Moore by lethal injection, its first executions in thirteen years.
2024, October 16. Idaho serves a new death warrant on Thomas Creech, scheduling execution for November 13.
2024, November. A federal judge grants Creech a stay of execution pending challenges to Idaho’s revised lethal injection protocol.
2025, January. Idaho House Bill 37 is introduced, with sixteen Republican co-sponsors, to make the firing squad Idaho’s primary execution method.
2025, February 6. The Idaho House passes House Bill 37, 58 to 11. Two Republicans vote no.
2025, March 5. The Idaho Senate passes House Bill 37, 28 to 7. One Republican votes no.
2025, March 6. The South Carolina Supreme Court declines to pause Brad Sigmon’s execution over the secrecy of the state’s lethal injection protocol.
2025, March 7. Brad Sigmon is executed by firing squad in South Carolina, the first such execution in the United States in fifteen years. His autopsy shows three distinct wounds, all in the intended vicinity of the heart.
2025, March 12. Governor Little signs House Bill 37 into law, effective July 1, 2026.
2025, March 17 and 24. The Idaho House passes House Bill 380 unanimously, and the Idaho Senate passes it 30 to 5. The bill creates a new capital offense of aggravated lewd conduct with a child age twelve or younger.
2025, March 27. Governor Little signs House Bill 380 into law.
2025, April 11. Mikal Mahdi is executed by firing squad in South Carolina. His attorneys and their retained pathologist say only two bullets struck him and that neither fully struck the heart; the Department of Corrections maintains two bullets created a single wound and that the heart was hit.
2025, May. Idaho announces that F-Block will be taken offline for construction, leaving the state unable to carry out any execution by any method until the retrofit is complete.
2025, July 1. Florida’s House Bill 903 takes effect, authorizing execution by any method not deemed unconstitutional if electrocution or lethal injection is held unconstitutional or lethal injection drugs become unavailable or impractical.
2025, October 23. Alabama executes Anthony Boyd by nitrogen hypoxia after he asks to be executed by firing squad instead. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, dissents from the denial of a stay in Boyd v. Hamm. This book’s author served as his spiritual adviser.
2025, November 10. The South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously rejects Stephen Bryant’s final appeal. His attorneys do not appeal to the United States Supreme Court and do not seek clemency. Governor McMaster issues a denial regardless.
2025, November 14. Stephen Corey Bryant is executed by firing squad in South Carolina, the third such execution in that state within roughly eight months.
2025, November 26. Ralph Leroy Menzies, whose September 5 firing squad execution had been called off by the Utah Supreme Court, dies of presumed natural causes in state custody, nine days after the State’s own evaluator found him incompetent to be executed and before the court could rule.
2026, January 21. Indiana’s House Committee on Courts and Criminal Code advances House Bill 1119, which would authorize the firing squad and nitrogen hypoxia, by a vote of eight to five.
2026, January 28. House Bill 1119 is defeated on the Indiana House floor, 48 to 47, three votes short of the constitutional majority required for passage. Nineteen Republicans join twenty-eight Democrats in opposition. Nitrogen hypoxia had already been stripped from the bill by floor amendment. Indiana does not become the sixth state to authorize the firing squad.
2026, February 9. Erick Hall, an Idaho death row prisoner, dies in state custody of a stroke, before any execution is carried out.
2026, March 31. Governor Little signs Idaho House Bill 803, exempting the Department of Correction’s execution procedures from judicial review under the state Administrative Procedure Act and extending anonymity to firing squad members and to any person or entity providing technical assistance during an execution. It takes effect July 1, 2026.
2026, April 24. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy releases Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty, a forty-eight-page report directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons to reinstate the single-drug pentobarbital protocol and to expand its methods to include the firing squad, electrocution, and lethal gas. It is the first formal federal authorization of the firing squad in American history.
2026, June 8. A panel of the Eleventh Circuit finds Alabama’s nitrogen protocol presents a substantial risk of serious harm and remands for consideration of Jeffery Lee’s proposed alternative, the firing squad.
2026, June 9. U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks permanently enjoins Alabama from executing Lee by nitrogen hypoxia and finds that the firing squad is feasible, readily implemented, and significantly reduces the risk of severe pain relative to nitrogen.
2026, June 11. The U.S. Supreme Court denies Alabama’s emergency application. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch would have granted it.
2026, July 1. Idaho’s firing squad protocol takes effect, making Idaho the first and only state to designate the firing squad its primary method of execution.