If he is convicted of the murders of four University of Idaho students last November, former Monroe County resident Bryan Kohberger could become the first to be executed under Idaho’s recently passed firing squad law.

House Bill 186 was signed into law by Republican Gov. Brad Little about a month ago, and it is scheduled to take effect on July 1.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 26 for Kohberger, who has pleaded not guilty. He was taken into custody at his parents’ home in the Indian Mountain Lakes development near the Carbon-Monroe border last Dec. 30 and voluntarily agreed to extradition proceedings to return to Idaho to face murder and other charges.

The firing squad alternative would be used when the drugs for a lethal injection are not available, an ongoing problem for the many states which use this method of execution. Pharmaceutical companies have grown increasingly unwilling to allow their drugs to be used in executions. As a result, some states have begun to expand alternate execution methods. This alternate method would also be used in the event lethal injections are found to be unconstitutional.

The firing squad legislation was not unanimous. Republican state Sen. Dan Foreman, whose district includes Moscow, home to the University of Idaho’s main campus, said he has seen the aftermath of shootings and calls it “psychologically damaging” for those seeing it. He called the use of a firing squad “beneath the dignity of the state of Idaho.”

Idaho’s ACLU chapter called passage of the bill “extremely disappointing” and noted that while it opposes all forms of capital punishment, death by firing squad is “especially gruesome.”

Idaho joins Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah in allowing execution by firing squad in cases where other methods are unavailable. The last time a convicted murderer was executed by firing squad was at Utah State Prison in 1977 in the high-profile Gary Gilmore case. Gilmore was convicted of brutally killing two men in separate robberies. He received international attention when he demanded that he be put to death.

Death penalty advocates maintain that death by firing squad is nearly instantaneous compared to execution by electric chair, which can take up to six minutes to complete. Using lethal injections have caused numerous problems because of their lack of effectiveness, these critics contend.

Of course, the use of the death penalty has been fiercely debated for decades. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro has continued the imposition of a moratorium on the death penalty initiated in 2015 by former Gov. Tom Wolf. Both are Democrats.

Seven states, including Pennsylvania, allow execution by electric chair. The last execution in Pennsylvania was in 1999, but it was by lethal injection. Gary Heidnik was put to death for raping six women and killing two of them after holding them captive in a pit in his basement.

The last execution by electrocution in Pennsylvania was on April 2, 1962. Elmo Smith was condemned to death for the rape and killing of a young woman in Montgomery County. Because of extensive pretrial publicity, the case was moved to Gettysburg in Adams County.

Since 1976, just three felons have been executed. In addition to Heidnik, the others were Keith Zettlemoyer and Leon Moser, both in 1995. Zettlemoyer became the first to be executed in Pennsylvania since 1976 when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered reinstatement of the death penalty. Moser was executed for the brutal murders of his former wife and their two daughters in Philadelphia.

Since 1693, when record-keeping began, 1,043 people have been executed in the Keystone State, third highest behind New York and Virginia. About 110 are on Pennsylvania’s death row today.

Before 1913, the most common method of execution in the state was hanging. The General Assembly in 1913 approved and Republican Gov. John Tener signed a bill establishing electrocution as the preferred form of execution.

The electric chair was introduced in 1914 at the Western Penetentiary at Bellefonte in Centre County (today the State Correctional Institution at Rockview). From then until 1962, 350 inmates were executed by this method, just two of them women.

Lethal injection became the state’s official method of execution when Democratic Gov. Bob Casey of Scranton signed its authorization in 1990.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.