The Justice Department is expanding execution methods and moving to speed up death penalty cases.
The Trump administration announced Friday that it is expanding the methods available for carrying out federal executions, adding firing squads, electrocution, and gas asphyxiation alongside the existing lethal injection protocol. The move was outlined in a Justice Department report fulfilling a promise Trump made to resume and accelerate capital punishment at the federal level during his second term.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche released the report and authorized seeking death sentences against nine people following Trump’s decision to rescind the moratorium on federal executions put in place by former President Joe Biden. The announcement also outlined steps to streamline internal processes and reduce the number of years between a conviction and an execution.
Why execution methods are expanding
The primary driver behind the expansion is access. Pharmaceutical companies have increasingly refused to sell drugs used in lethal injections to prison systems, partly due to compliance with a European Union ban. That has forced U.S. prisons to rely on smaller, less-regulated compounding pharmacies to produce copies of those drugs, a workaround that has created logistical complications and legal vulnerabilities.
The Justice Department’s report directed the Bureau of Prisons to update its execution protocol to include methods currently authorized under state law, specifically firing squads and electrocution, both of which have historical precedent in the United States, and nitrogen gas asphyxiation, a method first used by Alabama in 2024. The department stated the expanded protocol would help ensure it remains prepared to carry out lawful executions even if a specific drug becomes unavailable.
Lethal injection remains the most widely used method in the United States but carries a higher rate of complications than most alternatives. Opponents of the method have long argued that autopsies show executed individuals experienced symptoms consistent with drowning before the drugs took effect, raising constitutional questions about whether the method constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
The current federal death row
Before leaving office, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people then on federal death row, leaving only three men awaiting execution. The first is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in 2015 for his role in the Boston Marathon bombing. The second is Dylann Roof, convicted in 2017 for the racially motivated murder of nine worshipers at a South Carolina church. The third is Robert Bowers, convicted in 2023 of killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
None of the three have received execution dates. Condemned prisoners typically retain the right to challenge execution protocols on constitutional grounds, arguing that a given method violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Such challenges have never succeeded at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not previously found any adopted execution method to be unconstitutional, though legal battles can extend the process by years.
Where things stand across the country
The federal government’s expansion mirrors a broader shift taking place at the state level. Five states currently allow execution by firing squad. Idaho is set to adopt it as its primary method in July. Last year, a South Carolina man convicted of a double murder became the fourth person executed by firing squad in the United States since the 1970s, having chosen the method over the state’s alternatives of lethal injection or electrocution.
Nitrogen gas asphyxiation, which works by forcing nitrogen through a face mask to suffocate the condemned, has expanded rapidly since Alabama pioneered it in 2024. Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have since adopted the method.
What comes next
Trump’s first term saw 13 federal executions carried out by lethal injection in the final months of his presidency, resuming federal capital punishment after a roughly 20-year gap. The current administration has signaled it intends to move more aggressively this time, both in pursuing new death sentences and in removing procedural delays that have historically extended the time between sentencing and execution.
With only three people currently on federal death row and nine new cases being pursued, the legal and logistical machinery behind federal executions is being rebuilt with significant momentum behind it.