Details
The Justice Department said it will broaden federal execution protocols to include firing squad, electrocution and gas asphyxiation, while also restoring the lethal injection process used during Trump’s first administration.
The move is part of a wider effort to restart and speed up federal death-penalty cases. Officials say alternative methods are needed partly because of ongoing problems with obtaining lethal injection drugs.
The firing squad decision is likely to draw the most attention because it revives one of the oldest and most controversial execution methods in the US. Gas asphyxiation is also significant, as it pushes the federal system toward a newer and still heavily disputed method.
Critics say the shift marks a step backward. The American Civil Liberties Union, a leading US civil-rights group, said the Justice Department was embracing methods widely condemned for cruelty. Senator Dick Durbin also condemned the move, calling the death penalty barbaric and warning it would stain the country’s history.
Biden commuted 37 of the 40 federal death-row sentences, leaving only three inmates still on death row. That makes the immediate effect more limited than the rhetoric suggests. None of the three is currently eligible for an execution date under existing Justice Department rules
Trump’s Justice Department is also seeking the death penalty against more than 40 defendants, but none of those cases has yet gone to trial. That means any new execution is still likely to be years away
What Else
Legal challenges are expected, especially over whether the revived methods violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The broader significance is political as well as legal: after years of pressure to scale back capital punishment, Trump is pushing the federal system in the opposite direction.
