The Justice Department will add firing squads as a permitted method of federal execution, officials announced Friday, as the Trump administration moves to expand and accelerate capital punishment after a halt under President Biden.
The department is also reauthorizing the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital. That protocol was first adopted under Attorney General Bill Barr during Trump's first term and was used in 13 federal executions, more than under any president in modern history. The Biden administration withdrew it after a government review found "significant uncertainty" about whether the drug causes unnecessary pain and suffering. The Trump administration said Friday that review "got the standard and the science wrong."
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement: "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."
The federal government has not previously listed firing squad as a permitted execution method in its protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Five states currently allow it: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. A 2020 rule published under Barr allowed the federal government to conduct executions by lethal injection or by "any other manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed," which effectively opened the door to methods used at the state level.
Only three defendants remain on federal death row. Biden converted 37 death sentences to life in prison in his final months in office. The Trump administration has so far authorized seeking the death penalty against 44 defendants in new cases.
