‘The Justice Department said Friday that it was moving to expand the execution methods used to carry out federal death sentences beyond lethal injections, including by making firing squads and electric chairs available in some cases.

The announcement was the latest in a series of moves President Donald Trump’s administration has taken demonstrating support for the death penalty. Trump has long been an avid supporter of capital punishment, and during his first term, the Justice Department carried out its first federal executions in nearly two decades.

Since Trump’s return to the White House last year, his administration has lifted a moratorium on federal executions and pushed for more death sentences. Trump and other officials have also repeatedly castigated President Joe Biden for commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row shortly before he left office.

In its announcement Friday, the Justice Department said that in addition to seeking other ways of carrying out death sentences, it was directing federal officials to restore the execution protocol adopted during Trump’s first term, which uses the drug pentobarbital for lethal injections. This protocol — which some death row inmates had challenged in court, saying it would cause them severe suffering — was used to carry out 13 executions during the last year of Trump’s first term…’ (Mark Berman via Washington Post)