The US Department of Justice announced on Friday that it is taking steps to 'strengthen the federal death penalty', including reintroducing firing squads as an execution method and readopting the lethal injection protocol used during the first Trump administration.
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 announcement rescinds the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and authorises seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has already authorised seeking the death penalty 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 execution by firing squad in certain circumstances. Executions in the US rose last year to their highest level in 16 years, while public support for the death penalty has declined from 80% in 1994 to 52% in 2025, according to a Gallup poll.
Matt Wells, deputy director of human rights group Reprieve, said the report illustrates 'the federal government's determination to execute, at all costs', adding that 'this report opens the door to a whole range of appalling methods'.
