US death penalty: Trump administration wants to allow shooting and gas

In addition to death by lethal injection, the US government also wants to allow other methods of execution such as shootings, the electric chair or the use of lethal gas. This emerges from the amendment to the regulation for the execution of the death penalty for convicted criminals at the federal level, which was published Friday in the Official Journal of the federal government.

From December 24, executions should be carried out using all methods of execution legal in the state where the sentence was handed down. Most executions were carried out by lethal injection, but laws in some states provide alternatives. In Mississippi and Oklahoma, for example, the use of gas, electric chairs and firing squad is generally allowed. In Tennessee, for example, a prisoner was executed in an electric chair in December.

It was initially unclear whether incumbent President Donald Trump’s Justice Department actually planned to change the previous practice of lethal injection. The department is planning many more federal executions of convicted criminals until the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20. Democrat Biden rejects the death penalty. Republican Trump had forced the reintroduction of executions at the federal level.

While many states in the United States are carrying out the death penalty, there have been no federal executions since 2003. Since then, the death penalty has continued to apply, but has not been carried out. The legal battle to resume executions had dragged on to the Washington Supreme Court, but the government prevailed. The first three executions were carried out by lethal injection in July in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Overall, the death penalty is on the decline in the United States. In many places this has to do with changing public opinion, but also with increasing difficulties in obtaining the substances needed for lethal injection. Furthermore, the death penalty tends to lead to lengthy and costly litigation. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 15 people have been executed so far in the United States in 2020, eight of them at the federal level.