US Department of Justice announces decision to resume federal executions

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday that it will resume the federal use of capital punishment and that it is seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. DOJ also said that it will use firing squads, electrocution, or nitrogen asphyxiation if the drug used in lethal injection is unavailable.

The announcement follows the Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty report, published on April 24. The report is especially critical of the moratorium on federal executions, ordered by Attorney General Merrick Garland in July 2021, to remain until the death penalty could be conducted “fairly and humanely.” Garland was concerned about the federal lethal injection protocol, which uses only one drug, pentobarbital, and the possibility that it causes “unnecessary pain and suffering.” In response to Garland’s moratorium and concerns, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 prisoners on federal death row, leaving only three prisoners.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “The prior administration failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals… Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”

The new report asserts that Garland used an arbitrary standard that is inconsistent with the Eighth Amendment and that scientific research into the use of pentobarbital in executions does not support his concerns. In ending the moratorium, DOJ says that the use of pentobarbital satisfies the three-part test for compliance with the Eighth Amendment, as established in Bucklew v. Precythe (2019).

All 27 countries in the European Union (EU) have banned capital punishment, and the EU has placed strict regulations on the export of drugs that can be used in lethal injection to the US. Many American drug manufacturers are also reluctant to provide drugs for lethal injection, which leads states to seek other methods, as the DOJ now proposes, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).

In the announcement, DOJ also said that it has directed the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to relocate or expand or build a new federal death row to accommodate increased executions. DOJ also plans to consider a rule that would allow states to “streamline” federal habeas review of capital cases and the process for seeking death sentences. DOJ also plans to implement rules that will prohibit capital inmates from submitting clemency petitions “until court decisions in the inmate’s direct appeal and first collateral attack are final.”

The federal government has never used an execution protocol for the firing squad, according to the DPIC. Five states currently allow executions by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.

Source: jurist.org, Brendan Hickey, April 27 , 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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