Justice Department Adds Firing Squads, Electrocution and Gas Asphyxiation to Federal Execution Methods

On April 24, 2026, the Justice Department announced it would add firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation to the methods available for federal executions, citing shortages of lethal injection drugs. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche released the accompanying report. Federal executions had been carried out by lethal injection under protocols in place since the 1990s, and pharmaceutical suppliers' refusal to sell drugs for capital punishment has constrained states and the federal government for more than a decade.

Expanding the menu of execution methods is a change in how the federal government carries out its most irreversible power, and it invites Eighth Amendment litigation over whether particular methods constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Courts have upheld some of these methods at the state level, but the federal protocol had not previously included them.

The announcement was made on April 24, 2026. Its precise regulatory form and effective date were still being reported at the end of the month, and no court had ruled on the change.