US Justice Department Under Trump Pushes Expanded Execution Methods

The Justice Department led by President Donald Trump is seeking to expand federal executions by adding the firing squad, electrocution, and gas to the existing method of lethal injection.

In a statement, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the previous administration had failed to act decisively. “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,” he said.

Blanche added that under Trump, “the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”

Trump resumed federal executions in 2020 after a 17-year hiatus, with 13 executions carried out in the final six months of his first term—an unprecedented number in over a century.

Outgoing President Joe Biden later commuted 37 of 40 federal death row sentences before leaving office in January 2025. Upon returning to office, Trump called for broader use of capital punishment for what he described as “the vilest crimes.”

Although executions are typically handled by individual states, the federal government retains authority over certain capital cases.

Five states allow the firing squad, with only South Carolina recently carrying out such executions. Electrocution remains legal in nine states but has not been used since 2020, while two states have implemented nitrogen hypoxia—a method condemned by United Nations experts as inhumane.

The death penalty is no longer practiced in 23 states, and moratoriums are in place in California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

Among the three inmates whose sentences remain intact are one of the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, a gunman who killed 11 Jewish worshippers in 2018, and a white supremacist responsible for the 2015 killing of nine Black churchgoers.

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