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USA - Roundup of 2025 Legislation to Modify Execution Protocols

December 9, 2025:

December 09, 2025 - USA. Roundup of 2025 Legislation to Modify Execution Protocols

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 7th 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.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/roundup-of-2025-legislation-to-modify-execution-protocols