U.S. to Allow Firing Squads to Expedite Federal Executions
· Telemundo McAllen (KTLM)
The U.S. Department of Justice will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as part of efforts by former President Donald Trump's administration to intensify and expedite federal death penalty cases, officials announced Friday. The Justice Department is also reinstating the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital, which were used to carry out 13 executions during Trump's first term—more than under any modern president. President Joe Biden's administration had removed pentobarbital from federal execution protocols over concerns about unnecessary pain and suffering. The measures are part of a broader push to increase and accelerate federal executions following a moratorium during Biden's presidency. Only three inmates remain on federal death row after Biden commuted 37 sentences to life imprisonment, though Trump's administration has authorized seeking death sentences for 44 defendants so far. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated, "The previous administration failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to seek and carry out the maximum punishment against the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers. Under President Trump's leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing up for victims." Firing squads had not previously been included in federal execution protocols, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. Currently, five states—Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah—permit executions by firing squad. The pentobarbital protocol was introduced by former Attorney General Bill Barr during Trump's first term to replace a three-drug cocktail used in the 2000s, the last time federal executions were carried out before Trump's presidency. In the final days of Biden's administration, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland rescinded the pentobarbital lethal injection policy after a government review of scientific and medical research found "considerable uncertainty" about whether its use causes unnecessary pain and suffering. In 2020, under Barr's direction, the Justice Department published a rule in the Federal Register allowing federal executions by lethal injection or "any other form prescribed by the law of the state where the sentence was imposed." Several states permit alternative execution methods, including electrocution, nitrogen gas inhalation, and firing squads. A report released Friday by Trump's administration criticized Biden's handling of the issue, claiming the previous administration "got the standard and the science wrong." The report argued that Biden's findings failed to address "overwhelming evidence" that pentobarbital causes rapid unconsciousness, preventing the experience of pain. Currently on federal death row are Dylann Roof, who committed the racially motivated murders of nine Black worshippers at Charleston's Mother Emanuel AME Church in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the perpetrator of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 congregants at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, marking the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.