Roundup of 2025 Legislation to Modify Execution Protocols 

On December 15, 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center will release its annu­al Year End Report detail­ing nation­wide death penal­ty trends, includ­ing exe­cu­tions, new death sen­tences, leg­is­la­tion, pub­lic opin­ion, and the legal chal­lenges in the Supreme Court. This arti­cle high­lights the leg­is­la­tion intro­duced this year to mod­i­fy exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols. 

This year, leg­is­la­tors in more than half of states that retain the death penal­ty pro­posed changes to their exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols. Five states (Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, and North Carolina) enact­ed leg­is­la­tion to mod­i­fy their exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols, includ­ing bills to add new, large­ly untest­ed exe­cu­tion meth­ods and rein­tro­duce pre­vi­ous­ly aban­doned meth­ods. Nineteen bills to mod­i­fy or aug­ment exe­cu­tion meth­ods were intro­duced in 14 states, which either failed to be enact­ed or remain pending. 

Three States Seek to Add the Firing Squad to Allowed Execution Methods, Idaho Makes it the Default Method 

In 2025, South Carolina car­ried out the United States’ first fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion in fif­teen years with the March 7^th exe­cu­tion of Brad Sigmon. In total, South Carolina car­ried out the nation’s three fir­ing squad exe­cu­tions this year — the most the U.S. has seen in a sin­gle year since 1976. Several days fol­low­ing Mr. Sigmon’s exe­cu­tion, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed HB 37, which passed by wide mar­gins in both cham­bers. Although five states now allow exe­cu­tions by fir­ing squad (Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah), this law, which takes effect July 1, 2026, makes Idaho the only state to autho­rize it as its pri­ma­ry, default execution method. 

Legislators in Arizona, North Carolina, and Indiana* also intro­duced bills to add fir­ing squad as an exe­cu­tion method. Unusually, Indiana start­ed its 2026 leg­isla­tive ses­sion in December 2025, a month ear­ly due to calls to con­sid­er new con­gres­sion­al maps and tax codes. Introduced by Senator Michael Young (R) on December 8, 2025, SB 11 would allow fir­ing squad to be used if lethal injec­tion drugs are unavail­able or if the pris­on­er specif­i­cal­ly requests it. 

Arkansas Joins States Who Allow Nitrogen Gas Executions 

With the enac­tion of HB 1489, Arkansas became the fourth state to adopt nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method, join­ing Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Arkansas Act 302, which became law on August 5, 2025, was prompt­ly met with a law­suit from a group of 10 death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, who argue the new law vio­lates the state constitution’s sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers. Both Alabama and Louisiana have used nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions over the past year, with wit­ness­es report­ing seri­ous anom­alies dur­ing the exe­cu­tions, includ­ing signs of pain and dis­tress from the prisoners. 

As was the case in 2024, law­mak­ers in Nebraska (LB 432) and Ohio (HB 36) again intro­duced bills in 2025 to autho­rize using nitro­gen gas as an exe­cu­tion method; both bills remain pending. 

New Execution Drug Bill and New Bills to Restrict Pharmaceutical Companies from Supplying Execution Drugs Introduced 

Tennessee law­mak­ers intro­duced bills (SB 0491 /​ HB 1022) seek­ing to add phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal fen­tanyl as an exe­cu­tion drug; the leg­is­la­tion remains pending. 

Unique bills in Connecticut and Delaware — both states with­out the death penal­ty — sought to place restric­tions on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies incor­po­rat­ed in their states whose drugs or equip­ment may be used in exe­cu­tions. First intro­duced as SB 430, and lat­er rolled into SB 1355, the Connecticut bill sought to pro­hib­it per­sons who are licensed, reg­is­tered or doing busi­ness in the state from man­u­fac­tur­ing, com­pound­ing, sell­ing, test­ing, dis­trib­ut­ing, dis­pens­ing, or sup­ply­ing any drug or med­ical device for the pur­pose of exe­cut­ing the death penal­ty. On May 20, 2025, SB 1355 passed the Senate with a vote of 24 to 11, but it failed to receive a vote in the House before the session closed. 

Delaware’s HB 61 has sim­i­lar pro­hi­bi­tions on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies but goes fur­ther to cre­ate crim­i­nal, in addi­tion to civ­il, lia­bil­i­ties for cor­po­ra­tions or oth­er busi­ness­es in the state that vio­late the pro­vi­sions. For exam­ple, HB 61 pro­pos­es that if the high­est-rank­ing offi­cer of an enti­ty that ​“knew or should have known” that the firm’s prod­ucts would be used  ​“in any capac­i­ty” in an exe­cu­tion, then the firm’s char­ter will be revoked and that offi­cer will be guilty of a class A felony and sub­ject to a civ­il penal­ty of up to $50,000. HB 61 was last assigned to the House Judiciary Committee on  March 6, 2025. It may be tak­en up again in January 2026, when Delaware’s two-year leg­isla­tive session resumes. 

“A Method Not Deemed Unconstitutional” 

Florida’s HB 903 autho­rizes the state to use ​“a method not deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al” if lethal injec­tion and elec­tro­cu­tion are unavail­able for a vari­ety of rea­sons. It was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis on May 22, 2025, and went into effect July 1, 2025. In explain­ing his rea­son­ing for spon­sor­ing the bill, Representative Berny Jacques (R) com­plained, despite the record high num­ber of exe­cu­tions in Florida this year, that ​“weak sen­tenc­ing guide­lines and bureau­crat­ic inef­fi­cien­cies have allowed vio­lent offend­ers to escape real con­se­quences.” Advocates have expressed con­cerns that this new pro­vi­sion ​“green­lights experimental executions.” 

Lawmakers in North Carolina approved sweep­ing changes to the state’s crim­i­nal laws, includ­ing changes to the exe­cu­tion pro­to­col that echo HB 903 in Florida. HB 307, also known as ​“Iryna’s Law,” retains lethal injec­tion as the state’s pri­ma­ry method of choice but removes the cur­rent pro­hi­bi­tion against elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal gas as exe­cu­tion meth­ods. If lethal injec­tion is deemed uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, the state may now use an exe­cu­tion method approved by anoth­er state, so long as the U.S. Supreme Court has not declared that method to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The U.S. Supreme Court has nev­er found a method of exe­cu­tion to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. On October 3, 2025, Governor Josh Stein signed HB 307, which went into effect on December 1, 2025.