The Justice Department on Friday directed the Bureau of Prisons to expand federal death penalty protocols to include pentobarbital injections and the firing squad, a move that would give the government new options to carry out executions after inmates have finished their appeals.
In a memo, the department said it was acting to restore its duty to seek, obtain and implement lawful capital sentences. It said the change would clear the way for executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals and that it was readopting the lethal injection protocol used during the first Trump Administration.
The memo also said the protocol was being expanded to include additional manners of execution, including the firing squad, and that internal processes were being streamlined to expedite death penalty cases. The move is part of broader efforts to strengthen the federal death penalty, and it comes as the department seeks to make executions easier to carry out under the rules now in place.
The shift leaves the federal government with a wider set of execution methods on paper, but it also underscores how much of the process still depends on appeals being fully resolved before any sentence can be carried out.
