The Department of Justice on Friday announced a sweeping set of actions to reinstate and broaden the federal death penalty, including restoring lethal injection protocols from the first Trump administration and directing the Bureau of Prisons to add the firing squad as an approved execution method. The moves mark the most aggressive federal push on capital punishment in years and directly reverse the Biden-era moratorium that halted executions.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the announcement as a corrective to what he described as the prior administration's abdication of duty. In a statement released by the Justice Department, Blanche did not mince words.
"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. Under President Trump's leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims."
The announcement lands more than a year after President Trump, on his first day back in office, signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to prioritize seeking death sentences in appropriate cases, promptly carry out those sentences, and strengthen the federal death penalty overall. Friday's package of actions represents the most concrete implementation of that directive to date.
The department released a report titled "Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty," which it said examines the Biden-Garland Justice Department's handling of capital punishment. The report concludes, after what the department called a thorough analysis, that the use of pentobarbital to carry out death sentences is consistent with the Eighth Amendment, directly contradicting the rationale the Biden administration used to justify its moratorium.
That moratorium rested on an analysis asserting that the existing federal practice of execution by lethal injection with pentobarbital could not be carried out without risking "unnecessary pain and suffering." The Trump Justice Department's new report rejects that conclusion.
Beyond the report, the department said it has directed the Bureau of Prisons to reinstate the execution protocol adopted during the first Trump administration, relying on pentobarbital as the lethal agent. It also directed BOP to expand the protocol to include additional execution methods, most notably, the firing squad. Breitbart reported that the firing squad addition is part of the DOJ's broader effort to ensure executions can proceed even if legal challenges or drug-supply issues complicate lethal injection.
The department also said it directed BOP to examine relocating or expanding federal death row, or constructing an additional execution facility entirely. No specific sites were named.
Perhaps the most striking number in Friday's announcement: the department said it has authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. Acting Attorney General Blanche has personally authorized nine of those so far. Among the nine are three MS-13 members accused of murdering a federal witness, a case that drew national attention when the authorization was first announced. Two of those three MS-13 defendants are described by the department as illegal aliens.
That figure of 44 stands in sharp contrast to what came before. The Biden Justice Department imposed an indefinite moratorium on federal executions and urged President Biden to commute the death sentences of 37 of 40 inmates then on federal death row. Biden obliged. The result, as the New York Post noted, is that only three inmates currently remain on federal death row, even as the Trump administration pursues capital charges against dozens of new defendants.
The gap between 37 commutations and 44 new authorizations tells the story of two administrations with fundamentally different views of what justice requires for the worst crimes.
Friday's announcement was not limited to executive action. The department said it has directed its Office of Legislative Affairs to finalize and deliver a comprehensive legislative proposal to Congress. No details about the proposal's contents were provided, but the department described it as part of its effort to strengthen capital punishment at the federal level.
On the regulatory side, the department outlined several planned steps it said would come in the weeks ahead. One is a proposed rule that would empower states to streamline federal habeas review of capital cases, a process that currently allows condemned inmates to challenge their sentences in federal court, often for years.
The Trump administration has been reshaping DOJ priorities on multiple fronts, and the death penalty push fits a broader pattern of reversing Biden-era enforcement choices.
Another planned rule would prohibit capital inmates from submitting clemency petitions, and bar the Office of the Pardon Attorney from considering such petitions, until court decisions in the inmate's direct appeal and first collateral attack are final. The stated aim is to prevent inmates from using the clemency process to delay or circumvent the judicial process.
The department also said it plans to revise the Justice Manual to return to what it called the department's "historic approach to capital crimes," streamline the internal process for seeking death sentences, and ensure appropriate consultation with victims' families.
The Biden administration's moratorium on federal executions was imposed after Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered a review of execution protocols. That review produced the conclusion that pentobarbital-based lethal injection could not proceed without risking unconstitutional pain and suffering, a conclusion the Trump Justice Department's new report now calls into question.
But the moratorium went beyond simply pausing executions. The Biden Justice Department urged Biden to commute the sentences of nearly every inmate on federal death row. Thirty-seven of 40 had their death sentences commuted. The practical effect was to empty federal death row of almost all its occupants just as a new administration prepared to take office with a mandate to restore capital punishment.
Whether one views those commutations as merciful or as a deliberate effort to handcuff a successor depends on one's perspective. What is not in dispute is the result: the incoming Trump administration inherited a near-empty death row and a moratorium built on legal reasoning it considers flawed.
Just The News reported that the firing squad option will apply to federal inmates who have been sentenced to death and have exhausted all appeals. The department described the policy changes as intended to "deter the most barbaric crimes" and deliver justice for victims and survivors.
The addition of the firing squad is likely to draw legal challenges. But the department's report argues that the existing lethal injection protocol already passes constitutional muster under the Eighth Amendment, and the expansion to additional methods appears designed to ensure the government has options if any single method is blocked by litigation or logistical problems.
The broader legal landscape around the president's engagement with the courts and constitutional questions has been active throughout this administration. Trump has personally attended Supreme Court oral arguments on other contested legal matters, signaling a hands-on approach to the judiciary that extends well beyond the death penalty.
The announcement raises questions the department did not address. The names of the 44 defendants authorized for death-penalty consideration were not disclosed, nor were the names of the nine Blanche has personally approved, beyond the three MS-13 members. The specific facility or facilities under consideration for a relocated or expanded death row were not identified. And the legal reasoning in the linked report supporting the Eighth Amendment finding was described only in summary.
The department's approach to other inherited Biden-era rules has varied, preserving some, scrapping others, which makes the aggressive posture on the death penalty all the more deliberate.
The legislative proposal headed to Congress will also bear watching. Whether a closely divided legislature can pass new death penalty legislation is an open question. But the executive actions announced Friday do not require congressional approval. They are already in motion.
For the families of those murdered by terrorists, gang members, and predators, the Biden moratorium was not an abstraction. It was a message that the federal government had decided their loved ones' killers would not face the sentence a jury imposed. Friday's announcement reverses that message.
The department said its actions are "clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals." That is the system working as designed: a jury convicts, a judge sentences, the appeals run their course, and the sentence is carried out.
A government that refuses to enforce its own most serious penalties is a government that has stopped taking its own laws seriously. Whatever legal fights lie ahead, the Justice Department has made clear it intends to stop apologizing for the death penalty and start carrying it out.