Bryan Kohberger Could Face Firing Squad Over Lethal Injection Shortage-Rep

• Bryan Kohberger is awaiting a preliminary hearing in June after being charged with murdering four University of Idaho students.
• Idaho Gov. Brad Little is poised to sign a bill allowing firing squad executions if lethal injection drugs are not available.
• Prosecutors have not said if they will seek the death penalty in Kohberger's case, but legal experts say it is likely.
• State Rep. Bruce Skaug said officials can't get hold of lethal drugs, so firing squads are "the best course that we can take to carry out justice."

Bryan Kohberger could face death by firing squad if he is convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of four University of Idaho students and lethal drugs are not available, according to Idaho State Rep. Bruce Skaug.

Kohberger, 28, is charged in the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

Prosecutors have yet to say if they will seek the death penalty in Kohberger's case, but legal experts have told Newsweek it is all but certain they will.

He is awaiting a preliminary hearing in June and has not entered a plea to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, but a previous lawyer said he was "eager to be exonerated."

If convicted and sentenced to death, Kohberger could face execution by firing squad as Gov. Brad Little is poised to sign a bill allowing the method if the state is unable to obtain lethal injection drugs.

The bill, passed by the Legislature on Monday with a veto-proof majority, comes as Idaho has been struggling to secure lethal drugs and carry out death sentences.

It originated with Skaug, a Republican, after the state was unable to execute Gerald Pizzuto Jr. last year.

Pizzuto, who is terminally ill, has had his scheduled execution postponed multiple times because Idaho officials have not been able to secure the drugs needed to put him to death, as pharmaceutical companies have increasingly barred executioners from using their drugs.

In an appearance on NewsNation, Skaug said he hoped Little—a Republican who has voiced support for the death penalty—would sign the bill into law in the next few days and that it would take effect from July 1.

He said it would apply to those already on death row as well as those sentenced to death in the future, regardless of when the crime was committed.

Skaug said Kohberger's case was not the reason the bill passed, but "certainly his name comes up as a potential."

"We've been trying to carry out the death penalty, which is justice for those who have murdered in the first degree, for quite some time," he said.

Only Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina currently have laws allowing firing squads if other execution methods are unavailable, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). South Carolina's law is on hold pending the outcome of a legal challenge.

Skaug said it is "impossible" for Idaho officials to get hold of lethal drugs. While lethal injection is the state's preferred method, he argued that death by firing squad is a more humane method of execution.

"We cannot get the drug. We could not carry out the death penalty and our preference is for lethal injection but if we can't do that, then this is the best course that we can take to carry out justice," he said.

Death "occurs usually within about 10 seconds" in firing squad executions, Skaug said, citing experts.

With lethal injection, he said "there's certainly a complication of not being able to get the drug to carry it out but there have been complications with lethal injections that we don't like."

Skaug has been contacted for further comment via email.

Eight people—seven men and one woman—are on death row in Idaho, according to the Idaho Department of Correction. Idaho's last execution, of Richard Leavitt, took place in 2012.

Death-row prisoners in the U.S. typically spend more than a decade awaiting execution while they exhaust their legal appeals, according to the DPIC.