Trump's DOJ Reinstates Federal Firing Squad Executions and Vows to Slash Inmate Appeals

The US Department of Justice under Donald Trump has approved the use of firing squads for federal executions and is moving to curb lengthy inmate appeals, officials have confirmed.

The shift, framed by the department as a return to 'harsher' capital punishment tools, revives methods and protocols that had fallen out of use and draws a sharp contrast with President Joe Biden's more cautious stance on the death penalty.

Biden's administration had rolled back several Trump-era execution policies, pausing federal executions and restricting certain methods campaigners and courts had long argued were cruel or unreliable.

Under Trump's first term, the federal government restarted executions after a 17-year hiatus, carrying out a string of lethal injections using the drug pentobarbital. Critics at the time said the rush of executions, many in the final months of his presidency, short-circuited proper scrutiny of convictions and drug protocols.

The new move signals that the Justice Department, aligned again with Trump, is not only comfortable resuming that approach but intends to go further.

The policy changes were outlined in comments attributed to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and reported by Fox News Digital, which has been briefed on the internal shift. Blanche accused Biden's team of abandoning what he described as a 'solemn duty' to carry out death sentences handed down by federal courts.

'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,' Blanche said, according to the news outlet.

Firing squads and the use of pentobarbital sit at the centre of this new approach. The Justice Department said it was readopting the lethal injection protocol used during Trump's first term and expanding it to 'additional manners of execution such as the firing squad.'

Alongside that, officials say they are 'streamlining internal processes' designed to move capital cases more quickly through the system once conviction and sentence are final at trial.

In plain terms, that means two things: more ways to kill, and less time for condemned prisoners to challenge how and why it happens.

Firing Squad Executions Return To The DOJ's Toolkit

Although firing squads are associated with another era, they have never completely disappeared in the United States. According to the Associated Press, five states, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah, currently allow executions by firing squad under certain conditions. South Carolina used the method three times last year, a rare cluster even by American standards.

The Department of Justice's decision does not immediately bring federal firing squad executions into effect; it adds the method to the department's protocols, meaning it becomes an available option where permitted by law. Exactly how often it might be used is not yet clear. There is no public timetable, and no specific case has been flagged as a likely first test.

Supporters of firing squads argue, sometimes bluntly, that the method can be faster and more reliable than lethal injections, which have been dogged by botched procedures, supply problems and legal battles over drugs.

Opponents counter that lining up shooters in front of a restrained prisoner is the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment. The DOJ has not publicly addressed that moral argument, instead framing the change in terms of efficiency and legal compliance.

What the department has stressed is its intent 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.' The phrasing is careful, but the direction is obvious: fewer obstacles once a jury has spoken.

Trump's DOJ Ties Firing Squads To Tough-On-Crime Agenda

The new measures sit squarely inside Trump's wider law-and-order pitch. During his current term, the president pledged by executive order 'to ensure that the laws that authorise capital punishment are respected and faithfully implemented,' Fox News Digital reported.

Trump officials now accuse Biden of being excessively lenient towards offenders and of undermining deterrence by halting or delaying federal executions.

From the Justice Department's perspective, speeding up executions is not just administrative tinkering but an explicit policy goal. Officials say the reforms are intended to reduce the decades-long gaps that often separate sentence and execution, describing those gaps as unnecessary and harmful to victims' families.

According to the DOJ statement cited by Fox News Digital, the new death penalty policies 'are critical to deterring the most barbaric crimes, delivering justice for victims, and providing long-overdue closure to surviving loved ones.'

Whether they will deliver on any of that is another question. Death penalty researchers and civil rights lawyers have long argued that shortening appeal windows almost inevitably increases the risk of executing the wrong person, particularly in complex cases involving shaky eyewitness evidence, informant testimony or flawed forensic science. That perspective is not reflected in the department's language, which treats appeals primarily as a delay rather than as a safeguard.

There is also a quieter practical issue. Federal capital cases are among the most costly and contested in the US justice system. Defence teams routinely dig for years into old files, new DNA tests and prosecutorial conduct. Compressing that process may save time on paper, but it will almost certainly trigger fresh legal challenges and, in time, fresh Supreme Court decisions.

For now, the Justice Department is signalling that, under Trump, it intends to test those boundaries again. That means pentobarbital back in the injection chamber, firing squads on the books, and a renewed push to ensure that when a jury says 'death,' the state acts on it far more quickly than it has in recent years.