DOJ Expands Federal Death Penalty Tools to Lethal Injection and Firing Squads

The Justice Department announced it would reimplement the federal death-penalty protocol, reinstating lethal injection and adding the firing squad as an execution option while promising to streamline processes to speed cases. The move echoes the Trump-era push to strengthen capital punishment after Biden’s moratorium and subsequent clemencies, with Bondi lifting the moratorium in 2025 and directing prosecutors to seek the death penalty in appropriate cases, including the Mangione matter. A DOJ report defends pentobarbital as not violating the Eighth Amendment, a position critics say signals a return to aggressive execution policies.