Overview
- The Justice Department, which announced the changes Friday, reinstated single-drug pentobarbital injections and authorized firing squads, electrocution and nitrogen gas for federal executions.
- Officials said the plan is meant to prevent delays when lethal-injection drugs are hard to obtain and to speed capital cases through simplified internal reviews.
- The department concluded pentobarbital complies with the Eighth Amendment and said prosecutors have approval to seek federal death sentences in nine cases under the new policy.
- The Bureau of Prisons was told to explore expanding or moving federal death-row housing and to assess new or modified execution sites to support the added methods.
- Five states already permit firing squads, and the federal expansion is expected to face court challenges and opposition from civil-rights groups over execution methods and shorter habeas and clemency windows.