The Department of Justice ordered federal prisons to expand execution methods to include firing squads, gas asphyxiation, and electrocution, moving to restore and broaden the federal death penalty after years of inaction under the Biden administration. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the changes Friday, framing them as a long-overdue correction.

A DOJ memo released April 24 laid out the rationale in blunt terms: the expanded methods will "strengthen" the federal death penalty by "deterring the most barbaric crimes, delivering justice for victims, and providing long-overdue closure to surviving loved ones." The department simultaneously said it is readopting the lethal injection protocol used during President Trump's first term and streamlining internal processes to speed up capital cases, USA Today reported.

The directive marks the sharpest reversal yet of Biden-era criminal justice policy, and a concrete step toward making the death penalty functional again at the federal level after an administration that treated it as an embarrassment rather than a tool of justice.

What the Justice Department ordered

The DOJ's Friday release spelled out three categories of action. First, the department is restoring the lethal injection protocol from Trump's first administration. Second, it is expanding authorized execution methods to include firing squads. Third, it is overhauling internal procedures to cut the delays that have kept condemned inmates alive for years after their appeals ran out.

As Fox News reported, the DOJ also directed the Bureau of Prisons to add pentobarbital injections to the protocol, a drug that had been effectively sidelined under Biden. The memo stated the department "acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences, clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals."

Blanche did not mince words about the previous administration's record. In a statement released with the memo, he said:

"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."

That is not partisan rhetoric. It is a factual description of what happened. The Biden administration placed a moratorium on most federal executions, reversed much of the work done during Trump's first term to expand capital punishment in federal cases, and then, in a final act before leaving office, Joe Biden granted clemency to 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row.

Thirty-seven out of forty. That number deserves to sit with readers for a moment.

Who remains on death row, and why it matters

Three federal inmates remain under sentence of death. Among them: Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 massacre of nine Black churchgoers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber. And Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.

These are not marginal cases. They are among the most horrific acts of mass murder in modern American history, racist slaughter, terrorist bombing, antisemitic massacre. The Biden administration's decision to empty nearly the entire federal death row through clemency left these three as the exceptions, but the broader message was unmistakable: the federal government had effectively abandoned capital punishment as a functioning part of the justice system.

The Trump administration has moved in the opposite direction since day one. President Trump directed the DOJ to resume seeking executions on his first day back in office, and the department has been actively reasserting its enforcement authority across multiple fronts.

Expanding the toolkit, and the pace

The addition of firing squads as a federal execution method will draw the most attention, but the streamlining of internal processes may prove more consequential. For decades, death penalty opponents have used procedural delays as a de facto abolition strategy, keeping cases in limbo so long that the sentence becomes theoretical. The DOJ's new directive targets that bottleneck directly.

Breitbart reported that the Trump administration has rescinded the Biden-Garland moratorium on federal executions and authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. That figure, 44 active death-penalty cases, signals that the DOJ is not merely preserving the three existing death sentences. It is rebuilding the federal capital punishment pipeline.

The Washington Examiner noted that the department will also reauthorize pentobarbital and reduce delays between sentencing and execution, a direct response to the procedural drag that has kept condemned inmates alive for years, sometimes decades, after their convictions were upheld.

For the families of victims, the parents of the children killed at the Boston Marathon, the congregants' loved ones in Charleston and Pittsburgh, those delays are not abstract legal questions. They are a second sentence, imposed on the survivors, with no end date.

The Biden clemency legacy

Biden's mass clemency for 37 of 40 federal death row prisoners was one of the most sweeping acts of executive mercy in modern history. It was also one of the least debated. The decision came as Biden was leaving office, with minimal public deliberation about the individual cases or the wishes of victims' families.

The result was a federal death row that had been functionally emptied, not through any change in law, not through any court ruling, but through unilateral executive action. The current administration has made clear it views that as a dereliction.

The broader pattern is familiar. Biden-era officials across multiple agencies adopted policies that progressive judges and appointees then tried to lock in place, making reversal as difficult as possible for any successor. In the case of the death penalty, the moratorium, the procedural slowdowns, and the last-minute clemencies were all designed to make capital punishment inoperable at the federal level, regardless of what voters or their elected representatives wanted.

Why firing squads?

The specific inclusion of firing squads will generate controversy, but the practical logic is straightforward. Pharmaceutical companies have increasingly refused to supply drugs for lethal injection, creating supply-chain problems that have delayed or blocked executions in multiple states. Adding alternative methods gives the federal government options that do not depend on the cooperation of private companies engaged in political signaling.

Newsmax reported the DOJ's own language framing the expansion: "Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump administration, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases." The department described these steps as "critical" to delivering justice and closure.

Several states already authorize firing squads, and the method has a long history in American law. The federal government is not breaking new ground, it is catching up to states that recognized the lethal injection bottleneck years ago.

The Trump administration has shown a consistent willingness to use executive authority to restore enforcement mechanisms that the prior administration dismantled. Whether the issue is national security surveillance tools or the death penalty, the pattern is the same: rebuild what was taken apart, and do it fast.

Open questions

The DOJ memo does not specify which federal facilities would carry out executions under the expanded methods, or whether the directive requires the use of firing squads and other alternatives or simply authorizes them as options. Those details will matter as cases move forward.

Legal challenges are virtually certain. Death penalty opponents have used every available procedural and constitutional argument to block executions, and the addition of new methods will provide new grounds for litigation. How quickly the DOJ's streamlined processes can withstand that pressure remains to be seen.

But the direction is clear. The federal government is reasserting that the death penalty is not a relic or an embarrassment. It is a lawful sentence, imposed by courts, upheld on appeal, and owed to the victims of the worst crimes this country has seen.

For the families of the nine churchgoers in Charleston, the three killed and hundreds maimed in Boston, and the eleven worshippers gunned down in Pittsburgh, accountability is not a talking point. It is a promise the justice system made, and one the current administration appears determined to keep.

A government that cannot carry out its own lawful sentences is a government that has stopped believing in its own laws. This DOJ, at least, seems to believe again.