April 29, 2026
Data from the Death Penalty Information Center lists close to 2,100 prisoners on death row across the country including Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina after praying with him.
Following executive actions from President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice is exploring expanded execution methods, including allowing firing squads in federal death row cases, according to a recent memo.
In an April 24 memo, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the DOJ is working to “strengthen” the federal death penalty. The plan includes reinstating lethal injection protocols used during Trump’s first term and exploring additional methods, including firing squads.
“Expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution, such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases.”
In a statement, Blanche criticized the Biden-Harris administration for allegedly failing “in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals.”
During his term in office, former President Joe Biden placed a moratorium on several federal executions and reversed some work done to expand the death penalty in other cases, done under Trump’s first term.
Death penalty support and sentencing have declined significantly, with sentences down more than 80% over the past two decades and public support falling to 52% overall, including 47% among millennials and 42% among Gen Z.
There is also a sense from Americans that firing squads are a controversial method of execution involving multiple shooters. During the tour of her book, “Secrets of the Killing State,” Corinna Lain, a George E. Allen chair in Law at the University of Richmond (UR), said that as fans spoke out against the practice.
“One person said to me, as I was on a book tour this fall, ‘Well, that’s what murderers do,’” the author said.
“The firing squad is bloody. It is violent. It is a grotesque thing to see.”
While labeling firing squads as a form of “dehumanization” and as “explicit brutality,” Lain points out that not only is the method highly controversial, but it is also only legal in five states – South Carolina, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah.
Lain also argued that resources could be better spent elsewhere, noting that replacing death sentences with life without parole would significantly reduce costs.
“You would save millions of dollars by just converting those death sentences to life without parole, or just abolishing the death penalty and going for life without parole,” the expert said.
Data from the Death Penalty Information Center lists close to 2,100 prisoners on death row across the country. Some names made headlines for their crimes, including Robert Bowers, known for performing the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history, killing 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, and Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, after praying with them.
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