President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice on Friday directed the Bureau of Prisons to bring back the firing squad and lethal injection for federal executions.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a series of new measures to strengthen enforcement of the federal death penalty, clearing the way for the DOJ to carry out executions once inmates exhaust their appeals.
“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,” Blanche said.
“These steps are critical to deterring the most barbaric crimes, delivering justice for victims, and providing long-overdue closure to surviving loved ones,” he added.
The directives fulfill a campaign promise for Trump, who on his first day back in office ordered the attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.”
The policy marks a reversal from the Biden administration’s handling of federal executions.
In 2021, former President Joe Biden imposed an indefinite moratorium, effectively blocking all federal executions. In December 2024, he commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 inmates on federal death row at the urging of then-Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Those granted mass clemency included Thomas Sanders, who was convicted of murdering 12-year-old Lexis Roberts and hiding her body in the woods. Another included Daryl Lawrence, who killed 33-year-old Ohio police officer Bryan Hurst during a 2005 bank robbery in Columbus.
“These actions inflicted untold damage on countless lives and, ultimately, on the public’s confidence in the rule of law itself,” Blanche said.
The three inmates excluded from the commutations were the Boston Marathon bomber, the Tree of Life synagogue shooter, and the man who murdered nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Trump’s DOJ has lifted the federal execution moratorium and is seeking death sentences against 44 defendants, including three MS-13 gang members, two of them illegal immigrants, according to the department. During Trump’s first term, 13 federal death row inmates were executed.
“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, including terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers,” Blanche said. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”
