The US Department of Justice has amended the rules for the implementation of the death penalty, expanding them. The Hill writes about it.
Now local authorities will be able to execute criminals convicted at the federal level not only by lethal injection, but also in a gas chamber, in an electric chair or by firing squad.
Changes will take effect on December 24th.
Lethal injection is permitted in all states that use the death penalty. However, pharmaceutical companies often refuse to provide the government with murder drugs, and some states resort to alternative methods of execution.
After an unsuccessful execution in Oklahoma six years ago, the then US President Barack Obama ordered the Ministry of Justice to conduct a large-scale analysis of the death penalty and human rights issues related to the death injection drugs.
In 1976, the US Supreme Court reinstated the use of the death penalty. Since that time, more than 1.5 thousand prisoners have been punished in American prisons by killing more than 1.5 thousand prisoners, but of them only three are federal criminals, the rest of the cases were related to the decision of local authorities. There are about 60 people sentenced to death in federal prisons.