Topline
The Justice Department on Friday said it will seek to impose the death penalty in more federal cases and will expand the way in which convicted inmates can be killed—including bringing back the firing squad as a means of execution.
President Donald Trump on April 10, 2026.
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Key Facts
The department said it will bring back firing squads to kill prisoners and re-adopt lethal injections using pentobarbital, which were put on pause by former President Joe Biden after a government review found the drug may cause “unnecessary pain and suffering.”
The DOJ also released a report Friday that said the work of “anti-death-penalty activists” has made lethal injection drugs difficult to find and, because of their scarcity, recommended the Federal Bureau of Prisons use electrocution and asphyxiation via lethal gas to execute inmates.
President Donald Trump has told the DOJ to seek the death penalty in more cases, the department said, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested it will be more actively sought going forward in cases against “terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers.”
There are currently only three men on federal death row, after Biden commuted the sentences of 37 others awaiting executions to life without parole, and Blanche has authorized seeking death sentences against nine more.
In his first term, Trump resumed capital punishment after a 20-year pause and 13 federal prisoners were killed via lethal injection, including several involving significant medical and procedural issues.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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