US methods of execution explained as DOJ reveals it's bringing back firing squads for death penalties
Topics: Crime, Death Row, Donald Trump, US News, South Carolina
Ella Scott
Featured Image Credit: SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Crime, Death Row, Donald Trump, US News, South Carolina
The Trump administration has announced that firing squads are going to be used more frequently to execute death row inmates - but there are a handful of other methods already in use.
In a 48-page memo shared on Friday (April 24), the US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed that federal prisons would be authorized to expand the range of methods used for executions to include firing squads, gas asphyxiation and electrocution.
According to the document, the new directive would help to ‘strengthen’ the death penalty while ‘deterring the most barbaric crimes, delivering justice for victims, and providing long-overdue closure to surviving loved ones’, as per the BBC.
By broadening the means of executions, the DOJ will be able to carry out ‘lawful executions’ when lethal injection drugs, such as pentobarbital, are unavailable.
Advert
"Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences — clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals,” a memo from the DOJ obtained by Fox News read.
"Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad, and streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases.”
Right now, there are four primary methods of execution authorised across the United States, as per the Death Penalty Information Center.
Historically, being killed by a firing squad was punishment for mutiny and a way to discourage desertion during the Civil War, as per the Associated Press.
Only five states currently allow executions by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.
In March 2025, Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 2001, became the first person in almost 15 years to be killed via a firing squad.
The method was chosen over the electric chair and the lethal injection.
Meanwhile, Idaho has also passed a bill which would make firing squad the primary method of execution in the state.
The most common form of execution in the United States is the lethal injection.
The capital punishment involves injecting drugs - usually barbiturates, paralytic, and potassium chloride - into a condemned prisoner.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there have been 1471 deaths via the method since 1976.
This includes serial killers John Wayne Gaycy, Monster inspiration Aileen Wuornos and Clarence Ray Allen, one of the oldest inmates on death row.
The National Conference of State Legislatures confirmed Texas was the first state to use the method.
Other states were the lethal injection is authorised include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming.
In South Carolina, lethal injection may be elected as an alternative method, if available.
The Federal Government and the US Military also authorize lethal injection.
Electrocution is the default method of execution in South Carolina, with eight other states giving it the green light as an alternative method.
These are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
Virginia has previously utilised the electric chair. However, as it repealed the death penalty in March 2021, it is no longer an option.
Meanwhile, the supreme courts in Georgia and Nebraska ruled in the 2010s that the electric chair violates their state constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.
Various death row inmates have elected to be executed via the electric chair, with some citing concerns over the lethal injection.
These include Edmund Zagorski and David Earl Miller, both of whom died in Tennessee in 2018.
In 2024, Alabama became the first state to kill a prisoner using nitrogen gas.
Since then, four other states — Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma — have adopted execution by nitrogen hypoxia, with Louisiana being the only other to have used it, per the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
Execution by hanging was once the primary method of execution used in the United States.
However, it has fallen out of favor since the 1880s due to its barbaric, archaic, and cruel nature.
The last hanging to take place was January 25, 1996 in Delaware, as per the Dealth Penalty Information Center.