Justice Department to allow firing squads for executions in move to ramp up capital punishment

NPR ^ | April 24, 2026

[nickcarraway]

The Justice Department will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases, officials said Friday.

The Justice Department is also reauthorizing the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital that were used to carry out 13 executions during the first Trump administration — more than under any president in modern history. The Biden administration had removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol over concerns about the potential for unnecessary pain and suffering.

The moves were announced as part of a broader push to step up federal executions after a moratorium under the Biden administration. Only three defendants remain on federal death row after Democratic President Joe Biden converted 37 of their sentences to life in prison, though the Trump administration has so far authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: deathpenalty; execution; firingsquad

[ComputerGuy]

I still remember Gary Gilmore.

[dfwgator]

[ansel12]

That would be a pretty good way to go.

[usconservative]

I still remember the SNL bit “Please kill Gary Gilmore”

[dfwgator]

It was “Let’s Kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas”.

That skit had Michael O’Donoghue written all over it.

[Mariner]

A lot of mess

[Jonny7797]

“Biden administration had removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol over concerns about the potential for unnecessary pain and suffering”

Who gives a crap if the murders suffers a little.

[Rummyfan]

Cool!

[Rummyfan]

Who gives a crap if the murders suffers a little.

Lawyers and that cruel and unusual punishment clause.

[Noumenon]

SPJNK

[jeffersondem]

Combine the firing squad with term limits.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

A bit of pain when dying is neither cruel or unusual.

It is just the way things go.

It should not be inflicted deliberately but if the murderer says "ow" before shuffling off to the great beyond it is not a big deal.

[FrankRizzo890]

Me too. Utah was it?

[FrankRizzo890]

IIRC, the protocol was a shot in the heart. If someone complains about that causing undue suffering I vote for a move to the forehead.

[ChessExpert]

You can never have enough target practice.

[Dr. Sivana]

Who gives a crap if the murders suffers a little.

Well, whether we like it or not, the Supreme Court.

[Dr. Sivana]

Utah was it?

Yup. I had read that Mormons believe that the "spilling of blood" can be an acceptable atonement for sin, so Utah has firing squad as an option.

[hanamizu]

Lawyers and that cruel and unusual punishment clause.

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Big problem is that ‘cruel and unusual’ appears to be on a sliding scale. Flogging, branding, and the pillory were considered neither cruel nor unusual when the Constitution was ratified. Now, apparently to some judges, not putting a rapist who now claims to be female into a women’s prison is ‘cruel’.

Singapore inflicts brief but severe pain through caning for some crimes. For the criminal the pain diminishes over the course of some weeks but the memory of it lasts a lifetime. In a month or two all it is is a bad memory.

Now which is more cruel, strokes of the cane and then freedom to live your life, or being locked up in prison for a couple of years?

[whitney69]

I hope they also put in that a muslim is not to be killed by an infidel and that they are to be executed by their own people. It will cover the hole left in the muslim wishing to die by the infidel so they can’t get their afterlife. Dying for their god is preferred and acts as an incitive for their actions. The way I suggest is punishment benefitted against the perpetrator which they will understand.

wy69