The US Department of Justice announced on Friday that it is taking steps to 'strengthen the federal death penalty', including reintroducing firing squads as a method of execution and readopting the lethal injection protocol used during the first Trump administration.
In a news release, the department said it is 'readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration', which relies on pentobarbital, and 'expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad'. It also stated it is 'streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases'.
The department has rescinded the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and authorised seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has already authorised seeking death sentences against nine of these defendants.
Federal executions had been on hold since 2021 under a moratorium imposed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. During Trump's first term, the government resumed federal executions after a nearly 20-year pause.
At the state level, five states—Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah—already allow executions by firing squad in certain circumstances. Executions in the US rose last year to their highest level in 16 years, though public support for the death penalty has declined from 80% in 1994 to 52% in 2025, according to a Gallup poll.
