WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� The Justice Department will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration capital punishment cases, officials said Friday.
The Justice Department is also reauthorizing the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital that were used to 鈥� more than under any president in modern history. The Biden administration had removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol over concerns about
The moves were announced as part of a broader push to step up federal executions after a moratorium under the Biden administration. Only three defendants remain on federal death row after Democratic President Joe Biden , though the Trump administration has so far authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.
鈥淭he 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,鈥� Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. 鈥淯nder President Trump鈥檚 leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.鈥�
The federal government has not previously included firing squad as a method of execution in its protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Five states currently allow executions by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.
The pentobarbital protocol was adopted by Bill Barr, attorney general during Trump鈥檚 first term, to replace a three-drug mix used in the 2000s, the last time federal executions were carried out before Trump’s first term in office.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in the final days of the Biden administration withdrew the pentobarbital lethal injection policy after a government review of scientific and medical research found there remains 鈥渟ignificant uncertainty” about whether its use causes unnecessary pain and suffering.”
In 2020, under Barr’s leadership, the Justice Department published a rule in the Federal Register to allow the federal government to conduct executions by lethal injection or use 鈥渁ny other manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed.鈥�
A number of states allow other methods of execution, including electrocution, inhaling nitrogen gas or death by firing squad.
The Trump administration, , said the Biden administration 鈥済ot the standard and the science wrong.” The Biden administration’s findings, among other things, 鈥渇ailed to address the overwhelming evidence鈥� that an person injected with pentobarbital 鈥渜uickly loses consciousness鈥攔endering him unable to experience pain,” the report said.
Currently on death row are are Dylann Roof, who carried out the in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber ; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh鈥檚 , the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.
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