Justice Department adds firing squad to federal execution protocols, restores pentobarbital lethal injection

The Justice Department on Friday directed the Bureau of Prisons to include firing squads and pentobarbital lethal injections among approved federal execution methods, according to a DOJ memo obtained by Fox News and reported separately by the Associated Press. The announcement marks the first time the federal government has included the firing squad in its own execution protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a statement saying the 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." He said the department is "once again enforcing the law and standing with victims."

The pentobarbital protocol had originally been adopted by then-Attorney General Bill Barr during Trump's first term to replace a three-drug combination last used in the 2000s. Attorney General Merrick Garland withdrew it in the final days of the Biden administration after a government review found "significant uncertainty" about whether pentobarbital causes unnecessary pain and suffering. The Trump administration released a report Friday stating the Biden administration "got the standard and the science wrong," and that the evidence shows a person injected with pentobarbital "quickly loses consciousness—rendering him unable to experience pain."

Five states — Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah — currently allow executions by firing squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. A 2020 rule published under Barr also permitted the federal government to use "any other manner prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence was imposed," meaning some state-level methods were already technically available. Friday's announcement formally incorporates the firing squad into the federal government's own standing protocol.

Three individuals currently remain on federal death row: Dylann Roof, convicted in the 2015 racist killings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Robert Bowers, convicted in the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, described by NPR as the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. The Trump administration has separately authorized prosecutors to seek the death penalty against 44 additional defendants, according to NPR.