Justice Department readopts firing squads in federal executions

The U.S. government should add firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation as methods of executing people convicted of the gravest federal crimes, the Department of Justice said on Friday in a report that noted difficulties in getting drugs for lethal injections.

The report was a fulfillment of President Donald Trump’s promise to resume capital punishment in his second term. In his first term, which ended in 2021, he resumed it after a 20-year gap, executing 13 federal prisoners with lethal injections in his final few months in office.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who released the report, has authorized seeking death sentences against nine people after Trump rescinded a moratorium on federal executions by his predecessor, Joe Biden, the department said.

“Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases,” it said in a statement.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims,” Blanche said.

In the report, Blanche instructed the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons to modify its execution protocol “to include additional, constitutional manners of execution that are currently provided for by the law of certain states,” pointing to the older methods of firing squads and electrocution, and the new gas asphyxiation method pioneered by Alabama in 2024.

“This modification will help ensure the Department is prepared to carry out lawful executions even if a specific drug is unavailable,” the report said.

Biden, a Democrat, commuted the sentences of 37 of the people awaiting executions on federal death row, leaving only three men.