On January 28, 2026, HB 1119 failed on third reading in the Indiana House. The recorded tally was 48 yes to 47 no.  At first glance, that looks like a straightforward win — more yes votes than no votes. But Indiana requires more than a simple majority of those voting for a bill to pass.  Under Indiana’s constitutional rules, a bill needs a “constitutional majority,” meaning a majority of all the members elected to the House. In a 100-member chamber, that threshold is 51 votes, regardless of absences or “not voting.”

So HB 1119’s 48 votes were not enough. It was a rare kind of legislative moment: a bill can “win” the room numerically, yet still lose procedurally because the state constitution sets a higher floor. The narrow defeat reflected the intense debate surrounding this controversial bill - HB 1119 sought to add firing squad to the accepted methods of execution used by the state. 

Bill author Rep. Jim Lucas tried to frame the bill as a response to current practical challenges rather than the death penalty itself. “I understand this is a sensitive topic, and I respect and truly appreciate everybody’s passion and emotion on this issue, but the actual issue is not the death penalty — that’s been decided over 200 years ago,” Lucas said during the debate.

Opponents were concerned both by the perceived barbarity of using firing squads but also raised perennial anti-death penalty arguments - “You can’t tell me with 100% certainty that the person committed the crime,” Rep. Bob Morris said in passionate floor remarks. “One thing is for certain — you will never bring that life back when it is gone.”

In the United States, the death penalty occupies a weird legal and political space: it is simultaneously “settled law” and perpetually unsettled practice. It remains available in much of the country, yet it is used by a comparatively small number of states in any given year, constantly litigated, and repeatedly reshaped by practical constraints like drug availability, staffing, and the sheer difficulty of designing an execution protocol that survives constitutional scrutiny and public scrutiny at the same time.

State legislation introduced in current sessions reflects that tension. In 2026, some legislators are pushing toward outright abolition; others are trying to bring capital punishment back after repeal; and a growing slice of legislation is about something less philosophical and more operational: if a state is going to keep the death penalty, how does it actually carry it out?

Before we get into the bills, it’s worth grounding the conversation in where the United States sits today — both domestically and internationally.

The Death Penalty in America, and the International Context

Among Western democracies, the United States is increasingly an outlier for retaining and using capital punishment. Europe is functionally a death-penalty-free zone as a matter of law and treaty practice, and the Council of Europe frames abolition as a defining human-rights norm for the continent. Globally, the overall trend continues toward abolition in law and/or practice, even if a smaller set of countries still uses the penalty regularly. Within the G7 specifically, the U.S. is unusual: Japan is the other notable member that retains the death penalty.

That international framing does not decide U.S. constitutional law, of course. But it does shape the broader reputational and diplomatic context in which American state-level fights play out — particularly when new methods, secrecy provisions, or expanded eligibility categories enter the picture.

How Many States Still Have It, and How Many Actually Use It?

On paper, the death penalty remains widely available. The Death Penalty Information Center counts 27 states with the death penalty and 23 states without it (plus D.C., which does not have it). But “available” and “used” are not the same thing.

Even among states that retain capital punishment, many have effectively stepped back from executions for long stretches. DPIC’s “no recent executions” tracking lists 10 death-penalty states with no executions in at least ten years (including places like California, Kansas, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania), underscoring how frequently the death penalty exists more as a statute than as an actively used punishment. DPIC also separately identifies a smaller subset with an explicit executive hold on executions.

Meanwhile, executions remain concentrated in a handful of states. DPIC reports 1,655 executions since 1976 (the modern era of capital punishment). The “prolific” states are not a mystery, but the scale difference is still striking.

Executions are highly concentrated: the top states by total executions (1976–2024)

Source: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/state-execution-rates

That concentration matters for interpreting current legislation. A bill to tweak execution methods in a state that still executes is a different creature than a bill to “reinstate” capital punishment in a state that has not used it for decades — or that has abolished it entirely.

Current legislation: 44 Bills, 19 States, One Shared Theme

Most of the activity is abolition-oriented.  22 bills would abolish or repeal the death penalty, while 7 would reinstate or restore it in places that have moved away from capital punishment. A third bucket — 9 bills — focuses on execution methods and the logistics of carrying out a death sentence, with a smaller cluster centered on oversight, verification, and witness rules.

That mix is the story: the country is still arguing about whether capital punishment should exist, but a growing portion of lawmakers are arguing about the mechanics of how it exists.

Party Power, Opposition Bills, and Bipartisan Oddities

Are these bills driven by the party in power, the opposition, or genuine bipartisan coalitions?

Looking strictly at sponsorship patterns, a little under half of the bills are sponsored primarily by lawmakers aligned with their state’s dominant legislative party, while a substantial minority are “message bills” from the minority party — especially abolition bills in very Republican legislatures and reinstatement bills in very Democratic ones. This is the familiar pattern of capital punishment politics: the death penalty is still a strong partisan signal in many states, even as public opinion becomes more complex and less uniformly aligned.

But the legislation also shows something more interesting than pure partisanship: several bills show cross-party sponsorship or cross-party voting dynamics. That’s especially true in the “methods and protocols” category, where operational concerns can scramble ideological expectations.

Which brings us right back to the Indiana bill.

HB 1119 is a near-perfect case study in how the modern death penalty argument is increasingly fought on implementation details rather than first principles. And, the issue doesn't always break strictly along partisan lines with Republican in favor and Democrats opposed.  Indiana is not a narrowly divided legislature. Republicans hold a large majority in the House and Senate, and Indiana is a Republican trifecta.

And yet HB 1119 ran into real resistance from both parties. Nineteen Republicans joined all democrats in opposing the bill (click on the Votes tab on the bill page to see the breakdown).  News coverage likewise described the bill’s defeat as driven by bipartisan opposition, despite the bill being sponsored by Republicans and framed as a partisan measure.

That combination — a red-state legislature, a methods-expansion bill, and bipartisan resistance — is a useful clue for the broader national picture. Even in places where the death penalty still has political support in the abstract, the specific mechanics of how to carry it out can fracture the coalition.

The Broader Debate

Public arguments around HB 1119 (and bills like it) tend to split into three overlapping debates.

The first is a capacity argument. Supporters often claim the death penalty is meaningless if the state cannot reliably carry it out — because of lethal injection drug shortages, litigation risk, or uncertainty about protocols. In that view, adding methods like the firing squad is not an escalation so much as a workaround, designed to preserve a sentence that juries and statutes already authorize.

The second is a legitimacy argument. Opponents counter that adding “fallback” methods is a step backward: it normalizes more visibly violent forms of execution and increases the risk of botched or contested executions, while doing nothing to address deeper concerns about wrongful convictions, arbitrariness, or unequal application.

The third is a politics-and-image argument. Even lawmakers who support the death penalty in principle may hesitate when asked to publicly endorse a method that carries a heavy symbolic charge. The firing squad is not only a policy choice; it is a headline, a campaign mailer, and a national-news hook — which can make it a harder sell than, say, a procedural tweak to appeals timelines.

In other words, HB 1119 shows how the death penalty can lose votes not because the chamber suddenly embraces abolition, but because the chamber balks at the version of the death penalty it is being asked to own.

The State Picture

The map below shows death penalty related legislation in current sessions across the U.S.  Click a state to see the bills, and click 'Detail' to read the bill. 

Category One: Abolition Bills — The Biggest Bucket, Often the Steepest Climb

There are abolition or repeal bills in a wide range of political environments, and the party dynamics vary sharply by state.

In very Republican legislatures, abolition bills often come from Democrats and face long odds. HB 76 is a clean example: a proposal to abolish the death penalty in a state that still executes and where the legislature is heavily Republican. The likely path for such bills is not passage in the short term, but agenda-setting: keeping innocence, cost, racial disparity, and moral arguments in circulation, and occasionally forcing hearings or votes that can reshape future coalition-building.

In mixed or competitive environments, abolition bills can become more than symbolic. Pennsylvania is the standout state because it includes abolition bills from both parties, including HB 99 and HB 888. That does not guarantee success — Pennsylvania politics are famously complicated — but bipartisan abolition sponsorship changes the “default assumption” from culture-war posture to actual legislative possibility.

Some abolition bills also appear in states that have already abolished the death penalty but are still “cleaning up” constitutional and statutory edges. Delaware’s HB 35 is in this category: it proposes a constitutional amendment approach and, notably, it is the one bill that has already shown major movement, having passed the Delaware Senate. The catch is that constitutional amendments are rarely quick: they generally require multiple steps and, in many states, voter ratification — meaning “progress” can still translate into a multi-year timeline.

Abolition is therefore the dominant theme, but it is also the theme most sensitive to political geography. Where Democrats are the governing majority, abolition bills can be policy. Where Democrats are the minority, abolition bills are often strategy.

Category Two: Reinstatement and Restoration — A Counter-Movement With Familiar Targets

There is also a persistent counter-current: bills that would bring the death penalty back in states that have abolished it, or significantly expand eligibility categories where the death penalty is not currently available.

Illinois is the clearest example of this dynamic. Legislators have introduced multiple measures framed around reinstatement, including SB 0299 and related proposals. In a state where Democrats dominate the legislature,  these bills are often coming from the Republican minority — classic “opposition signaling” in a blue environment. The likely near-term outcome is limited: hearings, messaging, and a way to frame public-safety politics, rather than a realistic route to reenacting capital punishment.

New Jersey’s reinstatement proposals follow a similar logic. ACR 13 and SCR 87 fit the pattern of trying to re-open a settled abolition decision in a strongly Democratic legislative environment. These measures tend to face structural headwinds: even if public opinion shows support for the death penalty in the abstract, translating that into legislative majorities in an abolition state is difficult unless there is a catalytic event and a large swing in political incentives.

New Hampshire is a more interesting case. There are also multiple reinstatement bills such as HB 1737 and HB 1749 but New Hampshire politics are less one-sided than Illinois or New Jersey, and reinstatement arguments can resonate differently there. But reinstatement still tends to be legislatively arduous because it forces lawmakers to affirmatively choose capital punishment again — not merely to “maintain” it.

West Virginia’s bills are the most direct reinstatement push in your spreadsheet. Measures like HB 2019 and SB 196 would reintroduce capital punishment in a legislature that is overwhelmingly Republican. In that environment, reinstatement bills arguably have a clearer path than they do in blue abolition states — though they can still run into constitutional litigation risk, cost concerns, and the institutional reality that building an execution system is not simply a matter of passing a bill.

One bill worth calling out as emblematic is HB 4661, which would authorize the death penalty specifically for the intentional killing of law-enforcement officers or first responders in the line of duty. That kind of targeted eligibility framing is politically strategic: it narrows the argument to a sympathetic victim category and a high-moral-outrage fact pattern, rather than defending the death penalty in the abstract. It also mirrors a broader national pattern: even where abolition gains momentum, reinstatement efforts often return through narrower “worst of the worst” framing.

Category Three: Methods, Drugs, and “How” — The Operational Turn in Death Penalty Law

If abolition and reinstatement are the moral and political bookends, execution-method bills are the hinge connecting them to reality.

Indiana’s HB 1119 sits in this group, but it’s not alone. There are method and protocol measures across several states, and the recurring theme is practical: lethal injection has become legally and logistically fragile, so legislatures are looking for alternatives, substitutions, or protective rules that keep the machinery running.

Arizona’s SB 1751 and SCR 1049 are explicit examples of states revisiting authorized methods. Nebraska’s LB 432 also lives in the “multiple methods” space, offering flexibility if one protocol becomes unavailable or enjoined.

Ohio is another state where the mechanics dominate.  HB 36 would add nitrogen hypoxia as an execution option, while other Ohio measures push in the opposite direction — toward abolition — underscoring how method debates and existence debates can coexist in the same statehouse.

Tennessee’s entries show a different twist: the state has explored adjustments to injection protocols and the substances involved. Bills like HB 1022 and SB 0491 are examples of legislatures trying to solve the “drugs problem” directly rather than pivoting to a different method entirely.

Finally, some method bills are really secrecy-and-supply bills in disguise. Idaho’s H 0525 and North Carolina’s H 270 reflect the legislative impulse to protect suppliers, shield protocols, or reduce the disclosure that can trigger litigation. These are not always framed as “secrecy” in their political marketing; they are often framed as necessary to keep the state’s lawful sentences enforceable. But they raise their own legitimacy questions, because the less transparent the process becomes, the more vulnerable it can be to public distrust and court challenges.

Seen in that light, Indiana’s HB 1119 fight looks less like a state-specific controversy and more like a national pattern: states that retain the death penalty increasingly spend their legislative energy defending its operational viability, not merely its moral justification.

Category Four: Oversight, Verification, and Witness Rules — The Smaller but Revealing Reforms

A smaller cluster of bills focuses less on how to execute and more on how to watch, verify, and govern the process.

Tennessee’s “Bearing Witness” legislation is a good example. SB 1214 would expand who can witness executions by adding members of the General Assembly, explicitly aiming at oversight and transparency. A companion measure, HB 0198, ultimately failed in committee in the prior session (as reflected in the spreadsheet), illustrating a recurring dynamic: transparency reforms often attract attention, but they can die quietly in the same procedural channels that sustain the broader system.

Oklahoma’s OK SB1978 takes a different route, focusing on verification criteria and institutional standards. Oklahoma’s execution history has produced repeated scrutiny in recent years, and bills like this suggest a legislature attempting to codify guardrails that can withstand both litigation and public backlash.

These bills tend to be less ideologically explosive than abolition or reinstatement. But they are often a better indicator of where legislators actually feel pressure: if lawmakers believe the death penalty must remain, they still may accept that the process needs more governance to be defensible.

Category Five: Moratorium Bills — Rare, but Politically Significant

Only one bill sits squarely in this lane: Oklahoma's SB 601, the “Death Penalty Moratorium Act.”

Moratorium legislation is politically awkward in many death-penalty states because it looks like a concession without resolution: not abolition, not “tough on crime,” but a pause that implicitly admits the system may be failing. That makes moratorium bills both difficult and revealing. When they appear, they usually reflect one of two conditions: either high-profile execution problems have made “pause and review” politically safer than it used to be, or a coalition is trying to build an abolition pathway in stages rather than all at once.

In a deep-red legislature, a moratorium bill’s odds are usually low. But even a low-odds moratorium bill can matter, because it reframes the debate from morality to reliability — and “reliability” arguments can sometimes recruit lawmakers who are not abolitionists.

So, Which Bills Are Most Likely to Become Law?

Based on the mix of sponsorship patterns and legislative progress, the bills with the clearest pathways tend to fall into two categories.

The first is the “already moving” category. Delaware’s HB 35 is the obvious example because it has already cleared a significant hurdle. But because it is constitutional-amendment oriented, “movement” should be read as “multi-step progress,” not “imminent enactment.”

The second is the “operational viability” category: method and protocol bills in states that retain the death penalty. These bills can gain traction because they are framed as necessary administrative maintenance. Even then, Indiana HB 1119 is your cautionary tale. It had momentum, it had high visibility, and it still failed — not by a landslide, but by running into a constitutional-majority rule and bipartisan discomfort with the specific method being authorized.

By contrast, the lowest-probability bills are those that collide head-on with the state’s governing-party identity. Abolition bills in overwhelmingly Republican legislatures and reinstatement bills in overwhelmingly Democratic abolition states tend to be uphill, unless there is a major shift in public attention and legislative incentives.

Bipartisan bills, however, are the wild cards. Pennsylvania’s cross-party abolition sponsorship and Indiana’s cross-party resistance to HB 1119 are reminders that death-penalty politics do not always map neatly onto party labels — especially when a bill forces lawmakers to take ownership of the most concrete and controversial parts of the system.

Conclusion: Will the Death Penalty Landscape Actually Change?

If current legislation represents a snapshot of where the national fight is headed, the most honest conclusion is that the death penalty is likely to keep shrinking in use even if it persists in law — and that the legislative battlefield is increasingly about implementation.

Abolition bills dominate, which aligns with the long-term national direction: fewer death sentences, fewer active execution states, and more jurisdictions moving toward repeal or durable moratoria. At the same time, the reinstatement bills show that the issue is not settled; it remains politically available, particularly when framed around narrow categories like the killing of law enforcement or first responders.

But the most telling bills may be the method bills. The rise of legislation like Indiana’s HB 1119 suggests a system under strain: states that want the death penalty are repeatedly forced to legislate around practical barriers, legal constraints, and public legitimacy concerns. And sometimes, as Indiana just demonstrated, even a death-penalty state with a strong governing-party majority cannot quite assemble the votes needed to expand the methods of execution — especially when the method itself becomes the story.

In the near term, the most plausible “change” is not a sudden nationwide abolition wave. It is a continued divergence: more states stepping away, more states freezing in place with death-penalty laws they rarely use, and a smaller subset of states spending increasing legislative energy trying to keep executions feasible. HB1119’s 48–47 failure is a reminder that, in 2026, the death penalty can still be politically powerful — but the details of carrying it out are powerful enough to fracture even a seemingly durable coalition.

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