The Donald Trump administration has decided to include firing squads as a federal execution method.
On the 24th (local time), according to Reuters and other foreign media, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report on "restoring and strengthening the federal death penalty" and said it would add firing squads as an alternative execution method.
The move is intended to broaden options beyond lethal injection in case of drug shortages, adding the electric chair and gas asphyxiation.
It is seen as an extension of President Trump's push to actively carry out executions. U.S. President Donald Trump revived the federal death penalty for the first time in 17 years during his first term as the 45th president.
In particular, he carried out executions for 13 death row inmates just before his term ended. Afterward, executions were paused under the Biden administration, but President Trump has pressed hard for new death sentences since winning reelection.
The U.S. Department of Justice is understood to have ordered the Bureau of Prisons to restore execution procedures that use pentobarbital as the execution drug, a protocol adopted during the first Trump administration.
Pentobarbital had been treated as a drug excluded from executions. Critics argued it violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" because it can cause pulmonary edema.
However, the Department of Justice says pentobarbital induces immediate unconsciousness before a death row inmate can feel pain and thus meets constitutional standards.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, "The previous administration (the Biden administration) refused to carry out the ultimate penalty for dangerous criminals, failing in its duty to protect the American people."