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In addition to death by lethal injection, the United States government wants to allow other methods of execution such as shooting, the electric chair or the use of lethal gas. This stems from the amendment to a provision for the execution of the death penalty for federally convicted criminals, which was published on Friday (local time) in the official federal government gazette.
As of December 24, executions must be carried out using all methods of execution that are legal in the state in which the sentence was handed down. Most executions were carried out by lethal injection, but the laws of some states offer alternatives. In Mississippi and Oklahoma, for example, the use of gas, the electric chair, and firing squads are generally allowed. In Tennessee, for example, a prisoner was executed by electric chair in December.
It was initially unclear whether current President Donald Trump’s Justice Department really planned to change the previous practice of lethal injection. The department plans to carry out several federal executions of convicted criminals before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20.
Democrat Biden rejects the death penalty. Republican Trump had imposed the reintroduction of executions at the federal level.
While many US states are carrying out the death penalty, there have been no federal executions since 2003. The death penalty has continued to be imposed since then, but has not been carried out. The legal battle over the resumption of executions had dragged on until the Supreme Court in Washington, but the government prevailed. The first three executions were carried out by lethal injection in July at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The death penalty is declining in the United States overall. In many places this has to do with changing public opinion, but also with increasing difficulties in obtaining the substances necessary for the lethal injection. Furthermore, the death penalty tends to lead to lengthy and costly legal disputes. According to the Center for Information on the Death Penalty, 15 people have been executed in the United States so far in 2020, eight of them at the federal level.
