Before Idaho can execute someone by firing squad, it needs to design and build a death chamber. Elevatus Architecture and Okland Construction have stepped forward to do just that. We need your help to stop them.

Over the past decade, widespread shortages of lethal-injection drugs — intended by the pharmaceutical industry — combined with public outrage over botched, torturous executions, have prompted many states to halt executions or reconsider the death penalty altogether. But others are doubling down, searching for new or resurrected methods of killing.

Idaho is among the most aggressive. After failing to obtain lethal injection drugs and botching previous executions, the state passed legislation authorizing capital punishment by firing squad. This method has been widely denounced as barbaric. It inflicts extreme physical damage, terrorizes everyone involved, and violates evolving standards of decency. International human rights experts warn that firing squad executions violate human rights law and constitute cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.

These executions depend on private sector participation: architects and contractors must design and build these death chambers. In Idaho, publicly available legal filings show that Elevatus Architecture and Okland Construction are directly involved in the redesign of F Block, the state’s execution unit, including modifications required for firing squad executions. As such, Elevatus and Okland are directly enabling a method of execution condemned worldwide for its brutality, trauma, and risk of prolonged suffering.

Notably, in the case of Elevatus, this contract stands in direct violation of the Code of Ethics of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), to which Elevatus belongs as a member organization. The AIA rules clearly prohibit members from designing execution spaces, stating: “Members shall not knowingly design spaces intended for execution.” The AIA must drop Elevatus as a member if it does not abandon this project. 

Worth Rises sent letters to both Elevatus and Okland demanding that the firms withdraw from any and all execution-related design work in Idaho and commit to avoiding participation in such projects in the future. We outlined the human rights concerns and the ethical obligations of the profession. Neither corporation responded.

And so we turn to you. Thanks to public pressure nationwide, many corporations have already withdrawn from execution-related projects — from pharmaceutical manufacturers refusing to sell drugs for lethal injection to gas suppliers barring their nitrogen from being used in suffocation protocols. Corporate resistance works.

Now we must continue that pressure. Join the call to stop Elevatus and Okland from designing and building Idaho’s firing squad execution chamber. The death penalty is unethical, enabling it is reprehensible, and profiting from it is simply indefensible.