Justice Department advocates firing squads as a method of federal execution

During Joe Biden’s presidency, the Democratic administration took steps to end federal executions, including a measure that converted 37 death row inmates’ sentences to life in prison. Donald Trump vowed to reverse course and use federal powers to kill more people. To that end, the Republican president and his team have authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.

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But as important as these developments are, it’s also notable how, exactly, Team Trump is prepared to proceed with these executions. The Associated Press reported:

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 federal government has not previously included firing squad as a method of execution in its protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Five states currently allow executions by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.

The policy shift was announced in a statement from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whose document spent a fair amount of time denouncing Biden as part of the Republican lawyer’s latest apparent attempt to make Trump happy.

It’s worth emphasizing that Trump’s Justice Department hasn’t explicitly said that it will start killing people with firing squads, but now this option is on the table as part of a new, streamlined process in which the administration intends to expedite death penalty cases.

Time will tell what becomes of the shift and whether there are related Eighth Amendment court fights, but the developments reminded me of something Rachel Maddow told viewers back in 2014, when Republican policymakers advanced similar measures at the state level.