On April 24, the Trump administration authorized the firing squad as a method of execution, one of several actions aimed at expanding the federal death penalty system.
When speaking about the death penalty, most cases referenced are executions by lethal injection. With current roadblocks on importing the drugs necessary to create the cocktail, along with finding personnel to administer it, states may consider alternative methods. Some opt for lethal gas, others for electrocution. One method that is available in five states, but largely discounted, is the firing squad.
History of firing squad executions
The first death by firing squad in the United States occurred in 1608. As an American colony, Virginia sentenced Captain George Kendall to death for espionage. During the American Revolutionary War, shooting and hanging marked the main ways executions functioned.
Throughout American history, the firing squad was used primarily in military cases and across the American West, particularly in Utah. This derived an association with the “Wild West.” The 1878 U.S. Supreme Court case Wilkerson v. Utah found that death by firing squad does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
In 1972, the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty through Furman v. Georgia, ruling that its application was “capricious and arbitrary.” Five justices had differing views on why the death penalty was unconstitutional. This was the narrowest reasoning they could agree on. Justice Potter Stewart wrote in his concurrence that getting executed under the death penalty was “wonton and freakish,” and about as sporadic as getting struck by lightning.
States quickly scrambled to revise their laws and reinstate the death penalty, with the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia decision deeming the death penalty constitutional, with safeguards. These parameters sought to reserve the death penalty for the worst of the worst. They created a two-stage trial process and more extensive jury selection for death penalty cases.
The state of Utah used a firing squad in the first execution after Gregg. On Jan. 17, 1977, Gary Gilmore was executed at Utah State Prison. In this case, he opted for the firing squad over hanging. His last words to the executioners before he was shot were, “Let’s do it.”
This version of the firing squad includes three to five gunmen aiming at targets placed upon major organs. After covering the inmate with a hood and strapping them to a chair, the gunmen open fire. Shots aimed at major organs cause rapid blood loss, leading to death within moments. The use of multiple gunmen can lessen the likelihood that one misses a fatal shot. A stray bullet could cause the inmate to suffer a drawn-out death.
Since the Gregg decision, 23 states have abolished the death penalty. Out of the 27 remaining, four have Governor-imposed moratoriums barring further executions from taking place. Five states have authorized the firing squad as a viable method of execution. An Idaho law set to take effect in July 2026 will make the firing squad the primary execution method when lethal injection is unavailable.
Under the modern death penalty, Utah and South Carolina have carried out six firing squad executions. All three of South Carolina’s took place in 2025. All of these inmates chose the firing squad as their execution style.
Choice
In South Carolina, inmates can choose their method of execution. Utah allows inmates sentenced prior to May 3, 2004, to elect for a firing squad execution rather than lethal injection. In both cases, some wonder why inmates would opt for the firing squad over other eligible methods.
Nora Demleitner, criminal justice scholar and former president of St. John’s College, said she believes a reason for the choice is the perceived quickness of death when it comes to firing squads.
“I would not be surprised right now, with the problems with the medications around lethal injections, that people would think it’s much faster and more humane to be shot to death than to undergo a questionable lethal injection,” she said.
Autopsies of some individuals executed by lethal injection showed abnormally heavy lungs. The findings suggested inmates may have experienced slow suffocation during the execution process, according to an NPR article published in September 2020. Due to the paralytic agent involved in the drug cocktail, those administering the lethal injection cannot tell if the inmate is suffering or not, as the muscles resist movement.
In Boyd v. Hamm (2025), an inmate on Alabama’s death row requested to be executed by firing squad rather than lethal injection. The Supreme Court ruled against his request, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Boyd asks for the barest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by a torturous suffocation lasting up to four minutes,” Sotomayor wrote. “The Constitution would grant him that grace. My colleagues do not.”
Another reason behind the choice to be executed could be that it is the more “honorable” execution, according to Demleitner.
“It used to be that firing squads were really reserved for times of military war,” she said.
She also noted that after World War II, during the Nuremberg Trials, some convicted German generals wanted to be shot rather than hanged, due to the honor surrounding it.
At this moment in time, she believes that the perception of humanity is what is bringing inmates to choose the firing squad.
Current events
During the final six months of his first term, Donald Trump oversaw the executions of 13 federal death row inmates. This came after a total of three executions off federal death row in the years after the Gregg decision. Trump’s final six executions came after he lost his bid for reelection. The last occurred four days prior to Joe Biden’s swearing in.
After he assumed the presidency, Biden introduced a moratorium on federal death row executions. In December 2024, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates, leaving only Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Robert Bowers on federal death row.
Months into Trump’s second term, the Department of Justice began implementing his executive order authorizing the use of firing squads as a federal execution method. This also marks the readoption of the lethal injection cocktail used during executions from Trump’s first term.
“On his first day in office, President Trump directed the Department of Justice to prioritize seeking death sentences in appropriate cases, promptly carrying out those sentences, and strengthening the death penalty,” the Department of Justice wrote in a press release. “Since then, the Department has taken sustained action to implement that directive and reverse the Biden Justice Department’s efforts to erode the death penalty.”
They have reexamined the actions of the Biden-Garland Justice Department on the death penalty, according to the press release. They decided that pentobarbital as a form of lethal injection is in line with the Eighth Amendment, rather than cruel and unusual punishment.
The Justice Department directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to “include additional manners of execution,” such as the firing squad.
What could this mean?
It is unknown what direct impacts this will have, but time will tell. Some professionals believe this is just to create an image around Trump and his attitude toward crime.
“I think the whole idea of the firing squad right now is this kind of tough guy persona, this tough on crime, ‘we’re gonna do whatever it takes to carry out an execution,’” Matthew T. Mangino, author and former district attorney, said.
Mangino said he thinks this comes across successfully to a group that interprets Trump’s orders as serving justice to those who deserve it, no matter what the means are. But to a majority of Americans, he does not believe it works.
Professor of criminal justice at Cape Cod Community College, Darren Stocker, said that he does not believe this marks a shift in opinion on the death penalty.
“I think what is on the books now and whatever’s been reinstated since the death penalty was brought back, I don’t think they’re going to change that,” he said. “I think they’ll consider having options, and sometimes those options are actually left up to the person being executed.”
In the case of adapting to fit these policies, Demleitner said she also thinks things will mostly stay without change. A new administration may come in and undo these actions, just as Trump overhauled the Biden administration’s efforts.
“It’s really hard for me to imagine that becomes palatable for most parts of the country,” Demleitner said.
The Justice Department announced plans to revise the Justice Manual, the set of policies and protocols of the Department, to “return the Department to its historic approach to capital crimes, streamline the process for seeking death sentences, and ensure appropriate consultation with victims’ families.”
