Justice Department Seeks to Allow Firing Squads for Federal Executions
The US Justice Department is moving to widen both when the federal death penalty is pursued and how executions can be carried out, saying it wants to add the firing squad, electrocution and gas alongside lethal injection.
The US Justice Department is moving to widen both when the federal death penalty is pursued and how executions can be carried out, saying it wants to add the firing squad, electrocution and gas alongside lethal injection.
“The prior administration failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers,” acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
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In a statement, Mr Blanche said that under US President Donald Trump, “the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”
Mr Trump, during his first term, lifted a 17-year hiatus on federal executions in 2020.
Just before leaving office in January 2025, Democratic president Joe Biden, who opposes the death penalty, commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row.
On the opening day of his second term, Mr Trump called for broader use of capital punishment “for the vilest crimes”.
In the United States, executions are typically handled by individual states, though the federal government can also pursue the death penalty for a narrow range of offences.
Five US states currently permit execution by firing squad, but only one – South Carolina – has used the method in recent years.
Electrocution remains legal in nine states, although it has not been used since 2020.
Two states have recently carried out executions using nitrogen hypoxia, a process in which nitrogen gas is pumped into a face mask, causing the inmate to suffocate.
United Nations experts have condemned the use of nitrogen gas in executions as cruel and inhumane.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others – California, Oregon and Pennsylvania – maintain moratoriums.
The three men whose death sentences were left untouched by Mr Biden were one of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers, a gunman who killed 11 Jewish worshippers in 2018 and a white supremacist who murdered nine Black churchgoers in 2015.