The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday that it is expanding federal execution protocols to include methods such as firing squads alongside lethal injection, reversing a moratorium imposed during the previous Trump administration.
The DOJ press release read, “Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences – clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals.”
The DOJ is also seeking to bring back alternative methods of execution for those found guilty of the most serious federal crimes through gas asphyxiation and electrocution.
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What is a firing squad execution?
A firing squad execution is a method of capital punishment in which a condemned prisoner is shot to death by a group of trained shooters. Typically, the prisoner is restrained, seated or strapped to the chair with a target placed over the heart, while multiple shooters aim simultaneously.
Historically, firing squads have been used in military contexts and in some civilian executions. In the United States, the method has been rare in recent decades, with most executions carried out by lethal injection.
According to the Associated Press, five states permit firing squad executions under specific conditions: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.
Why is the method being brought back?
Reuters reported that the DOJ’s decision is largely because of practical factors. Officials cited ongoing difficulties in obtaining drugs used for lethal injections, which have become harder to source due to pharmaceutical restrictions and legal challenges.
According to the department’s statement, the measures include “expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad” and “readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration,” which “relies on pentobarbital as the lethal agent.”
The DOJ justified the reintroduction by saying that the move would help in “streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases.”
The Justice Department also declared that it had “authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants” and “rescinded” the federal execution ban that was in place under the Biden administration.
The interim US attorney general, Todd Blanche, has “already authorized seeking death sentence against nine of these defendants,” according to the statement.
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Public support for death penalty declines in the US
In the US, public support for the death penalty seems to be waning. According to a Gallup poll released in October, the percentage of Americans who support the death penalty for murder convictions has been progressively dropping over the previous three decades, from 80% in 1994 to 52% in 2025.
Additionally, the Death Penalty Information Center stated this year that “the evidence shows that the death penalty in 2025 is increasingly unpopular with the American people even as elected officials schedule executions in search of diminishing political benefits.”
However, Last year, the number of executions in the US reached its highest point in 16 years.
Donald Trump had also signed an executive order shortly after taking office in January of last year, promising to seek federal death sentences and instructing the attorney general to make sure that states have an adequate supply of lethal injection medicines for executions.
Merrick Garland, the attorney general of the Biden administration, put a moratorium on federal executions in 2021 while “a review of the Justice Department’s policies and procedures” was ongoing.
Since then, “the Department has taken sustained action to implement that directive and reverse the Biden Justice Department’s efforts to erode the death penalty,” the DOJ stated on Friday.
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