Bipartisan Support Defeats Indiana House Bill to Add Firing Squad as Execution Method

A bipar­ti­san group of 19 Republicans and 28 Democrats nar­row­ly defeat­ed a mea­sure to add the fir­ing squad as an exe­cu­tion method in an Indiana House floor vote on January 28, 2026. HB 1119 received 48 in favor and 47 against, falling three votes short of pas­sage, with two leg­is­la­tors not vot­ing and three absent. Although the mea­sure could have been brought for a sec­ond vote before February 2, it was not. A sim­i­lar Senate bill (SB 11) to add the fir­ing squad stalled in com­mit­tee and is also effec­tive­ly dead. After a 15-year hia­tus, Indiana resumed exe­cu­tions in 2024 amid con­cerns from state offi­cials about cost. Currently, only five states (Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah) allow exe­cu­tions by fir­ing squad. South Carolina car­ried out the nation’s first fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion in 15 years on March 7, 2025. 

“Evol[ution]” Or A ​“Step Backwards” 

Authored by Indiana Representative Jim Lucas (R), with coau­thors Representative J.D. Prescott (R), Stephen Bartels (R), and Andrew Ireland (R), HB 1119 under­went mul­ti­ple revi­sions before mak­ing it to the House floor for a vote. The amend­ments includ­ed the removal of nitro­gen gas as an alter­nate execution method. 

On January 22, the Committee on Courts and Criminal Codes first amend­ed the bill by a vote of 8 to 5, to allow the Department of Corrections to decide on an exe­cu­tion method regard­less of the avail­abil­i­ty of lethal injec­tion drugs and remov­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty for the pris­on­er to choose a method. The com­mit­tee also amend­ed the bill text to define what it means to ​“par­tic­i­pate in or be in atten­dance at an execution.” 

On January 27, sev­er­al addi­tion­al amend­ments were pro­posed, and three passed. Rep. Alex Zimmerman’s (R) amend­ment to require one media wit­ness at an exe­cu­tions passed with a voice vote, and anoth­er amend­ment remov­ing nitro­gen gas passed with a por­tion of the House vot­ing 58 to 32. Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn (D), who ulti­mate­ly vot­ed against HB 1119, pro­posed an amend­ment to pro­vide mem­bers of the exe­cu­tion team access to a psy­chol­o­gist or psy­chi­a­trist spe­cial­iz­ing in PTSD, to be paid by the Department of Corrections, which was adopt­ed with 87 to 6. While the bill’s pri­ma­ry author, Rep. Lucas, and coau­thor Rep.Bartels (R) vot­ed in favor of this amend­ment, the two oth­er coau­thors, Rep. Prescott and Rep. Ireland, opposed the state pro­vid­ing men­tal health ser­vices to exe­cu­tion team members. 

Before the House vote, leg­isla­tive debate about the mea­sure extend­ed beyond exe­cu­tion meth­ods to address death penal­ty abo­li­tion more broad­ly. Bill author Rep. Lucas (R) cit­ed ​“cen­turies of sup­port” for the bill in ​“Indiana his­to­ry, Indiana law and facts.” He high­light­ed the state’s his­tor­i­cal use of the death penal­ty, orig­i­nat­ing pri­or to state­hood, using hang­ing and elec­tro­cu­tion. Rep. Lucas framed HB 1119 as sim­ply a way to ​“evolve” and pro­vide anoth­er method to car­ry out exe­cu­tions. Rep. Robert Morris (R), a death penal­ty oppo­nent and pro-life leg­is­la­tor whose efforts to amend the bill to require a study of best fir­ing squad prac­tices failed, char­ac­ter­ized the bill as a ​“step back­wards.” He high­light­ed issues of arbi­trari­ness and inno­cence in his remarks: ​“We have exe­cut­ed peo­ple in this coun­try wrong­ful­ly. One thing is for cer­tain: you will nev­er bring that life back when it is gone.” Following Rep. Morris, mul­ti­ple leg­is­la­tors echoed anti-death penal­ty sen­ti­ments, empha­siz­ing the need for a more sub­stan­tive debate on the state’s reten­tion of the death penalty. 

During this ses­sion, Rep. Morris had also intro­duced HB 1287, which would have required exe­cu­tion teams to be com­prised of vol­un­teers from the gen­er­al assem­bly and that their names be made pub­lic record, in an effort to add a lay­er of account­abil­i­ty among his col­leagues. ​“Don’t give any­one a job that you would­n’t want to do your­self,” said Rep. Morris in a press release about the bill. A sim­i­lar effort was made by Nebraska leg­is­la­tor Megan Hunt last year in response to a bill to intro­duce nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method (LB 432). On January 23, 2025, Senator Hunt filed an amend­ment to LB 432 to add leg­isla­tive fir­ing squad, where­by mem­bers of the leg­is­la­ture must car­ry out a fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion. In a post on X, for­mer­ly known as Twitter, she remarked that this ​“offers law­mak­ers oppor­tu­ni­ty to bear respon­si­bil­i­ty for state-sponsored murder.” 

Execution Methods and Cost in Indiana

Use of the fir­ing squad has nev­er been autho­rized in Indiana. Originally the state used hang­ing as its pri­ma­ry exe­cu­tion method. In 1913, the state switched to the elec­tric chair as its pri­ma­ry exe­cu­tion method, with the last elec­tro­cu­tion occur­ring in 1995, at which time lethal injec­tion was adopt­ed. After a 15-year hia­tus, the state resumed exe­cu­tions with the December 2024 exe­cu­tion of James Edward Corcoran, a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill man who waived his final appeals. About four months after Mr. Corcoran’s December exe­cu­tion, the Indiana Capital Chronicle released high­ly redact­ed records indi­cat­ing that the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) ​“shall pay the Contractor the sum of nine hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars ($900,000)” like­ly for lethal injec­tion drugs, with for­mer Governor Eric Holcomb (R) and IDOC broad­ly apply­ing shield laws to keep details secret. 

Since Mr. Corcoran’s exe­cu­tion, the state has car­ried out two more exe­cu­tions — Benajmin Donnie Ritchie in May 2025 and Roy Lee Ward in October 2025. Lawyers for Mr. Ritchie raised con­cerns about the pen­to­bar­bi­tal used, cit­ing ​“vio­lent” move­ments dur­ing the exe­cu­tion, but due to the pro­hi­bi­tion of media wit­ness­es at state exe­cu­tions the pub­lic has no inde­pen­dent report­ing on the mat­ter. In June 2025, Governor Mike Braun (R) dis­closed that the state had deplet­ed its sup­ply of pen­to­bar­bi­tal that was pur­chased in December 2024, with the third and last dose expir­ing before use. ​“We’ve got to address the broad issue of, what are oth­er meth­ods, the dis­cus­sion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in gen­er­al, and then some­thing that costs, I think, $300,000 a pop that has a 90-day shelf life — I’m not going to be for putting it on the shelf and then let­ting them expire,” Governor Braun told reporters at the Indiana Statehouse. However, in the months that fol­lowed, Indiana car­ried out Mr. Ward’s exe­cu­tion, though the drug acqui­si­tion and accom­pa­ny­ing costs remain unclear. 

Nationwide Efforts to Add Alternate Execution Methods 

Across the nation, state offi­cials say they are encoun­ter­ing dif­fi­cul­ties obtain­ing, stor­ing, or admin­is­ter­ing lethal injec­tion drugs but are often pro­vid­ing no evi­dence in sup­port of these claims. Some leg­is­la­tors have respond­ed with efforts to revive pre­vi­ous­ly aban­doned meth­ods such as fir­ing squad and elec­tro­cu­tion; intro­duce rel­a­tive­ly new or untest­ed alter­na­tives like nitro­gen gas suf­fo­ca­tion or fen­tanyl; and autho­riz­ing use of any method ​“not deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.” From 2022 – 2025, leg­is­la­tors in at least 12 states (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana,¹ Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee) have intro­duced bills to adopt new exe­cu­tion meth­ods or remove pro­hi­bi­tions on cer­tain execution methods. 

Of these bills intro­duced, 5 states (Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, and North Carolina) have suc­cess­ful­ly enact­ed leg­is­la­tion. Idaho adopt­ed fir­ing squad as a method in 2023 (HB 186) and became the only state to adopt it as its pri­ma­ry exe­cu­tion method in 2025 (HB 37). Louisiana added both nitro­gen gas and elec­tro­cu­tion as alter­nate exe­cu­tion meth­ods in 2024 (HB 6) and used nitro­gen gas in its first exe­cu­tion in 15 years in the March 2025 exe­cu­tion of Jessie Hoffman; Louisiana joined Alabama as the sec­ond state to use nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions. Arkansas added nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method in 2025 (HB 1489) but has not used it in an exe­cu­tion. North Carolina adopt­ed sweep­ing changes to its crim­i­nal laws in 2025, includ­ing remov­ing pro­hi­bi­tions against use of elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal gas as exe­cu­tion meth­ods. If lethal injec­tion is deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, HB 307 now allows the state to use any exe­cu­tion method approved by anoth­er state so long as the U.S. Supreme Court has not found it to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The Supreme Court has nev­er found an exe­cu­tion method to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. As the state lead­ing the nation’s exe­cu­tions in 2025, Florida also enact­ed unprece­dent­ed leg­is­la­tion to allow ​“a method not deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al” (HB 903).