Trump has been an outspoken supporter of it for years, and during his first term the Justice Department resumed federal executions after a nearly two-decade hiatus.
After his return to the White House last year, his administration lifted the moratorium on executions and began pushing for more active enforcement of the death penalty. In addition, administration officials have sharply criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for commuting the sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates to life in prison without parole.
According to the ministry’s announcement, the execution protocol from Trump’s first term, which uses the substance pentobarbital in lethal injections, is also being restored. This method was used in 13 executions at the time, but was challenged in court by convicts who claimed it caused severe suffering.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing up for victims,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
It is not yet clear whether the expansion of the methods will have an immediate effect. The federal death row is nearly empty, and while new ones have been requested in dozens of cases, the process is slow and no new federal death sentences have been handed down since the new term began.
In parallel, the department released a 52-page report titled “Reinstating and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty,” which criticized the policies of the Biden administration and, in particular, the mass pardons granted before he left office.
During the Biden administration, the Justice Department had imposed a temporary moratorium on executions and later questioned the humaneness of the pentobarbital protocol used. However, this report defends this method.
The Trump administration has also criticized Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences of nearly all federal inmates to life in prison, accusing him of not sufficiently considering the perspective of victims and their families. The document also said the government was considering speeding up appeals and legislative changes to allow death sentences to be handed down and carried out more quickly, including the possibility of new trials if there was an initial failure to reach unanimity on the sentence.
At the same time, it noted that while executions in the US have declined significantly in recent decades, the past year has seen a new surge, particularly at the state level, with some states now using alternative methods such as firing squads, the electric chair and nitrogen gas.
Federal executions traditionally take place at the prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, but the new proposals include the possibility of changing that practice and even building new facilities to allow for different methods of execution. Critics of the decision described the steps as a return to harsher and more controversial practices in the criminal justice system, while the Trump administration said the goal was to restore law and order and protect victims of serious crimes.
