Justice Department advocates firing squads as a method of federal execution

by | Apr 27, 2026 | Criminal Justice, Justice Department, Maddowblog, News, Politics

During Joe Biden’s presidency, the Democratic administration took steps to end federal executions, including a measure that converted 37 death row inmates’ sentences to life in prison. Donald Trump vowed to reverse course and use federal powers to kill more people. To that end, the Republican president and his team have authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.

But as important as these developments are, it’s also notable how, exactly, Team Trump is prepared to proceed with these executions. The Associated Press reported:

The Justice Department will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases, officials said Friday. […]

The federal government has not previously included firing squad as a method of execution in its protocols, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Five states currently allow executions by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.

The policy shift was announced in a statement from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whose document spent a fair amount of time denouncing Biden as part of the Republican lawyer’s latest apparent attempt to make Trump happy.

It’s worth emphasizing that Trump’s Justice Department hasn’t explicitly said that it will start killing people with firing squads, but now this option is on the table as part of a new, streamlined process in which the administration intends to expedite death penalty cases.

Time will tell what becomes of the shift and whether there are related Eighth Amendment court fights, but the developments reminded me of something Rachel Maddow told viewers back in 2014, when Republican policymakers advanced similar measures at the state level.

“Over time, we’ve

Original

Filming ICE is one of the most American things you can do right now — no matter what DOJ says

Filming ICE is one of the most American things you can do right now — no matter what DOJ says

by | Jan 18, 2026 | Criminal Justice, Opinion

An ICE agent shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2026. He shot her in the head while she was inside her car. She was 37 years old, and a mother of three.

Those facts are fixed. Also fixed: the video footage from multiple cameras, including the ICE agent’s own cell phone camera, which quickly provided politicians, law enforcement and the public with multiple angles of the scene before, during and after the deadly encounter. Trump administration officials are demanding that the public accept that Good “weaponized” her vehicle, that the shooting was “self-defense” and that questioning this version of events endangers law enforcement. 

Although an FBI probe is ongoing, the Justice Department has already said it does not believe there is currently any basis to open a criminal civil rights investigation into Good’s killing. This is a deeply unsettling and exasperating moment for those of us who care about police accountability, truth and justice. We have been here before with the police killings of Eric Garner, Philando Castile and George Floyd — and the many lesser-known killings also caught on camera. We have seen clear video, watched it again and again, and still justice is delayed or never comes.

This is a deeply unsettling and exasperating moment for those of us who care about police accountability, truth and justice.

After all of this, it’s easy to conclude that filming doesn’t matter. I don’t believe that. I’ve seen what happens when video exists, and I’ve seen what happens when it doesn’t. More often than not, it feels like video is the only thing standing between a lie and a life being ruined by it.

Original

Powered by CookieAdmin