WASHINGTON, D.C.: Firing squads may soon become a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases, if the Justice Department has its way.
The Justice Department is allowing the use of a single drug, pentobarbital, again for lethal injections. This drug was used in 13 executions during Donald Trump's first term—more than under any recent president. The Biden administration had stopped using it because of concerns that it might cause unnecessary pain.
This decision is part of a larger effort to restart federal executions after they were paused during Biden's presidency. Now, only three prisoners remain on federal death row because Joe Biden changed 37 death sentences to life imprisonment. However, the Trump administration is currently seeking the death penalty for 44 people.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the previous administration did not do enough to protect Americans by refusing to carry out executions for very dangerous criminals. He added that under Trump, the Justice Department is enforcing the law and supporting victims.
The federal government has never officially used a firing squad as a method of execution, though five states—Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah—allow it.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr introduced Pentobarbital during Trump's first term to replace an older three-drug method used in the early 2000s. Later, Attorney General Merrick Garland removed it after a review found uncertainty about whether it causes pain.
In 2020, the Justice Department also created a rule allowing executions either by lethal injection or by any method allowed in the state where the sentence was given. Some states use other methods like electrocution, nitrogen gas, or firing squad.
A recent Trump administration report criticized the Biden administration's findings, saying they ignored strong evidence that pentobarbital makes a person lose consciousness quickly, preventing pain.
The three inmates still on federal death row are Dylann Roof (who killed nine Black church members in 2015), Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber), and Robert Bowers (who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018).
