By Michael Clements
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has authorized firing squads, electrocution, and gassing as a means of execution in federal cases.
In a press release on April 24, the department said it was directing the Bureau of Prisons to expand its execution protocol to include firing squads, lethal injection with pentobarbital, and other methods. It’s part of a broader report on the death penalty following President Donald Trump’s executive order to reinstate capital punishment at the federal level.
President Joe Biden had instituted a moratorium on executions and commuted the death sentences of almost all federal death-row inmates before he left office.
One of the first actions to be taken is to readopt the lethal injection protocol used during the first Trump administration. Trump also rescinded Biden administration policies the press release describes as “efforts to erode the death penalty.”
In addition to establishing a moratorium on federal death penalties and commuting the death sentences of 37 inmates on federal death row, the Biden administration discontinued lethal injection because it carried the risk of “unnecessary pain and suffering.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which opposes capital punishment, did not respond to a request for comment on this story. However, on its website it stated its opposition to Trump’s plans.
In a Nov. 14, 2024, post, the civil rights organization called on Biden to commute the sentences of those on federal death row.
The ACLU warned that Trump would call for a return to firing squads, the guillotine, and hanging as execution methods.
“Already, Trump has called to unconstitutionally expand the death penalty to include non-homicide crimes, such as drug-related offenses,” the post states.
The DOJ also released a 52-page report, “Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty.”
The report “examines the actions of the Biden-Garland Justice Department and, after a thorough analysis, finds that the use of pentobarbital to carry out death sentences is consistent with the Eighth Amendment,” according to the press release.
“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,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”
One of Trump’s first executive orders directed the DOJ to prioritize seeking death sentences in certain cases, carrying out those sentences, and strengthening the death penalty, the press release states.
According to the press release, since rescinding the Biden moratorium, the DOJ is seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has authorized seeking death sentences against nine of them, including three MS-13 gang members, two of whom are illegal aliens, accused of murdering a federal witness.
In addition to considering other methods of execution, the Trump administration has ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to study expanding or relocating federal death row, or “constructing an additional execution facility to permit additional manners of execution.”
The press release criticized the previous administration for making decisions and implementing policies based on personal opposition to the death penalty. The release states that the prior attorney general abandoned capital prosecutions already underway “against the wishes of victims’ families and career prosecutors.”
According to the press release, the DOJ will “revise the Justice Manual to return the Department to its historic approach to capital crimes, streamline the process for seeking death sentences, and ensure appropriate consultation with victims’ families.”
This announcement comes about a month after the DOJ announced a proposed rule to streamline the federal review of capital cases.
According to the proposal, a process implemented in 1996 and amended in 2006 provided expedited review of federal habeas petitions in states that the attorney general certified had set a postconviction “process for the appointment, compensation and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel.”
The DOJ states that previous administrations imposed rules and requirements that Congress had not included in the law.
The proposed rule would remove these rules, expediting decisions in States’ certification requests. It also will make certification decisions final, as opposed to a five-year limited term reform, that should encourage more states to apply for certification, the proposal states.
