DOJ Approves Firing Squads for Federal Death Penalty Cases

The department readopts the lethal injection protocol used during the first Trump administration and expands it to include additional measures.

South Carolina's death chamber, including the electric chair (R) and a firing squad chair (L), in Columbia, S.C., in an undated photo. South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has authorized firing squads, electrocution, and gassing as a means of execution in federal cases.

In a press release on April 24, the department said it was directing the Bureau of Prisons to expand its execution protocol to include firing squads, lethal injection with pentobarbital, and other methods. It’s part of a broader report on the death penalty following President Donald Trump’s executive order to reinstate capital punishment at the federal level.