On April 24, 2026, the Department of Justice dropped a 52-page report that changed the landscape of capital punishment in America. The Trump administration didn’t just reinstate the federal death penalty. It expanded it in ways that no modern president has attempted, adding firing squads, electrocution, and gas asphyxiation to the list of approved federal execution methods. Whether you support capital punishment or oppose it, there’s no denying this is one of the most aggressive moves on criminal justice policy in decades.
What the DOJ Actually Announced
The DOJ’s announcement covers a lot of ground, so let’s break it down piece by piece. First, the department readopted the lethal injection protocol using pentobarbital, the same drug used during Trump’s first term when 13 federal executions were carried out between 2020 and 2021. Second, and this is the part that grabbed the most headlines, the DOJ expanded its execution protocols to include firing squads. The federal government has never executed anyone by firing squad before. This is brand new territory at the federal level.
But it doesn’t stop there. The DOJ also said electrocution and gas asphyxiation are constitutionally acceptable methods under the Eighth Amendment. The reasoning? Lethal injection drugs are increasingly difficult to obtain. Pharmaceutical companies have been pulling away from the execution business for years, and adding alternative methods ensures the government can carry out death sentences even when specific drugs aren’t available.
44 New Death Penalty Cases and Counting
The numbers tell a story of their own. The DOJ has authorized seeking the death penalty against 44 defendants across the country. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche personally signed off on death penalty requests for nine of those defendants, including three MS-13 gang members. Two of those MS-13 members are illegal immigrants accused of murdering a federal witness.
None of these 44 cases have gone to trial yet, and capital cases typically take years to work through the courts. So we’re not talking about imminent executions. But the sheer volume of cases where the government is actively seeking death sentences is a sharp turn from the Biden era, when then-Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium on federal executions and then-President Biden commuted 37 death sentences to life in prison in the final stretch of his presidency.
Who Is Still on Federal Death Row
After Biden’s commutations, only three civilian inmates remain on federal death row, along with four inmates in military custody. The three civilian names are ones most Americans will recognize. Dylann Roof murdered nine Black churchgoers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev carried out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Robert Bowers shot and killed 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, which remains the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history.
These three cases are widely seen as among the most clear-cut in the federal system. All three were convicted of mass murder with extensive evidence. But even these cases face legal hurdles, and the average time between a death sentence and an actual execution in the United States now stands at over 19 years.
The Firing Squad Question
Let’s talk about the firing squad, because that’s the detail that shocked people the most. As of right now, only five states allow firing squad executions: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah. South Carolina actually carried out three firing squad executions in 2025, making it the most recent state to use the method.
The federal government, though, has never shot anyone as a method of execution. Not once. So when the DOJ added it to the approved list, it raised immediate questions. Will the government actually use it? When Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen gas asphyxiation in 2024, it set a precedent that the DOJ specifically referenced in its report. The administration appears to be watching what states do and incorporating those methods at the federal level.
The practical argument is simple. If the government can’t get pentobarbital, it needs backup options. The philosophical argument is where things get heated.
A New Execution Facility on the Table
Buried in the report is a detail that hasn’t gotten enough attention. The DOJ directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to examine relocating or expanding federal death row, or building an entirely new execution facility. A new facility would be designed to accommodate multiple methods of execution, not just lethal injection.
Think about what that means practically. The current federal execution chamber at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana was built for lethal injections. If you want to offer firing squads or other methods, you need infrastructure that doesn’t currently exist at the federal level. Building a new facility would be a years-long project, but it signals where the administration wants to go.
Acting AG Blanche Goes After Biden Hard
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche didn’t mince words in the report’s introduction. He accused the Biden administration of failing “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 also said the Biden-era moratorium had turned every death sentence into a de facto life sentence, calling it a betrayal of victims’ families and career prosecutors who had spent years building capital cases.
Blanche also took direct aim at Biden’s decision to withdraw the pentobarbital protocol. In the final days of the Biden administration, Garland pulled the protocol after a government review found “significant uncertainty” about whether the drug causes unnecessary pain. The Trump DOJ’s new report fires back, arguing that review misread the science and that pentobarbital renders a prisoner unconscious rapidly enough to prevent suffering.
The Critics Are Loud
Opposition came fast from multiple directions. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois called state-sanctioned killing “not justice” and said the DOJ was “turning back the clock by strengthening the barbaric practice of the federal death penalty.” Abe Bonowitz, co-founder of Death Penalty Action, was more blunt, saying “Donald Trump loves having the power to kill. None of the 13 executions he already has under his belt have made the country any safer.”
Then there’s the Pope Leo XIV angle. On the exact same day the DOJ made its announcement, the new pope condemned capital punishment as an attack on human dignity in a prerecorded message shared with DePaul University in Chicago. “We affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after very serious crimes are committed,” Leo said. The timing was either a coincidence or a very deliberate piece of counter-programming from the Vatican.
The collision highlights a growing rift between the Trump administration and Catholic leaders, who have also publicly opposed the administration’s immigration policies. In February 2026, U.S. bishops filed an amicus brief opposing the administration’s position on birthright citizenship.
Where Americans Actually Stand
Public opinion on capital punishment is at its lowest point in over half a century. An October 2025 Gallup poll found 52 percent of Americans support the death penalty for murder, with 44 percent opposed. For context, support peaked at 80 percent in 1994. So while a slim majority still favors capital punishment, the trend line has been moving steadily downward for 30 years.
That said, the broader global picture puts the U.S. in increasingly rare company. Roughly 141 countries have abolished the death penalty entirely, including every European nation except Belarus, plus neighbors Canada and Mexico. Only about 55 countries worldwide still permit capital punishment. The U.S. is the only Western democracy that still executes people.
Legal Battles Are Coming
Every legal expert tracking this story agrees on one thing: lawsuits are inevitable. When any government adopts a new execution protocol, death row prisoners can challenge it as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Adding firing squads, electrocution, and gas asphyxiation to the federal list practically guarantees years of litigation before any of these methods are actually used.
The DOJ is also planning a legislative proposal to Congress that would address delays in the appeals process. One proposed rule change would help states speed up federal habeas review of capital cases, a legal mechanism that currently adds years to the timeline between sentencing and execution. The administration also wants to limit clemency petitions, another source of delay.
Whether any of this actually results in faster executions remains to be seen. The federal court system moves slowly by design, and capital cases move slowest of all. But the direction the Trump DOJ is heading is unmistakable: more death sentences, more execution methods, and fewer obstacles between a jury’s verdict and the government carrying it out.
What Happens Next
In the short term, expect the political fight to intensify. The 44 pending death penalty cases will work their way through federal courts over the next several years. Legal challenges to the new execution methods will be filed almost immediately. Congressional debates over the proposed legislation will be fierce, especially given the razor-thin margins in both chambers.
For the three men currently on federal death row, the immediate impact is unclear. Roof, Tsarnaev, and Bowers still have legal options available to them, and the 19-year average between sentencing and execution suggests none of them face imminent dates. But the Trump DOJ has made its intentions very clear. The moratorium is over, the methods are expanding, and the government is actively working to shorten the timeline between a death sentence and its execution. Whatever side of this debate you fall on, this is a moment that will shape American criminal justice for years to come.
