DOJ adds firing squad to federal executions, moves to narrow habeas review and clemency

On April 24, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy released a report, "Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty," paired with administrative actions described in a same- day press release from the Office of Public Affairs. The report and release set out two tracks. The first is a set of immediate administrative changes: the Department directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to expand the federal execution protocol — most notably to add the firing squad alongside other methods — and readopted the lethal- injection protocol used during the first Trump administration. The second track is a pair of forthcoming proposed rules: one that would, in the Department's words, "empower states to streamline federal habeas review of capital cases" under Chapter 154 of Title 28, and a separate rule that would prohibit capital inmates from submitting clemency petitions — and the Office of the Pardon Attorney from considering them — until the inmate's direct appeal and first collateral attack are final. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the actions; the underlying report's preparation had been directed by former Attorney General Pamela Bondi.

The most consequential elements, from a due-process perspective, are not the execution-method changes (the report grounds its firing-squad analysis in the 1878 decision Wilkerson v. Utah) but the two forthcoming rules. Federal habeas review of state convictions has been the principal vehicle for federal-court oversight of state capital cases since 1867; an administrative rule that materially narrows that review would curtail a long-standing federal check on state criminal- justice systems. The clemency-petition restriction would close off, for years at a time, a remedy that has historically run in parallel with — not after — judicial review. The independent corroborator catalogued by the Death Penalty Information Center notes that the report's most far- reaching proposals, including legislative changes to federal habeas, would require congressional action; the rulemaking pieces, however, are within DOJ's claimed administrative authority and are the elements most likely to take effect quickly.

The Standing records this entry under three abuses. Ignoring habeas corpus tracks the proposed Chapter 154 rule, which is framed as an administrative reduction of detention-review review in capital cases. Narrowing civil-rights protections tracks the clemency-petition rule: clemency review is a remedy that the Department itself acknowledges has operated historically — an administrative rule restricting access to that remedy materially weakens it without legislative repeal. Corrections abuse tracks the expansion of the federal execution protocol itself. The event is the announcement and the immediate administrative steps; the proposed rules are recorded here at the notice stage and will be re-evaluated when promulgated.