Department of Justice Withdraws Federal Execution Protocol and Keeps Moratorium on Executions in Place

Three and a half years after announc­ing its inves­ti­ga­tion into the fed­er­al death penal­ty pro­to­col, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on January 15, 2025 that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is rescind­ing the fed­er­al government’s sin­gle-drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal lethal injec­tion pro­to­col. The DOJ’s deci­sion was based on what AG Garland called ​“sig­nif­i­cant uncer­tain­ty” about whether exe­cu­tions by pen­to­bar­bi­tal caused unnec­es­sary pain and suf­fer­ing. The DOJ’s state­ment expressed a desire to ​“err on the side of treat­ing indi­vid­u­als humane­ly.” It fol­lowed an exten­sive set of con­sul­ta­tions with fed­er­al and state author­i­ties, med­ical experts, expe­ri­enced cap­i­tal coun­sel, and oth­er stake­hold­ers. Federal Execution reg­u­la­tions were not changed. Single-drug lethal injec­tion is autho­rized by statute in 20 of the 27 states where the death penal­ty is legal.

On July 1, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy to coor­di­nate a review of the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion pro­to­col adden­dum and the Department’s reg­u­la­tions regard­ing fed­er­al exe­cu­tions. The review includ­ed an exam­i­na­tion of autop­sies of exe­cut­ed indi­vid­u­als, reports of med­ical experts, and accounts of exe­cu­tion wit­ness­es. The review con­clud­ed that there is ​“sig­nif­i­cant uncer­tain­ty about whether pen­to­bar­bi­tal can be used in a sin­gle-drug exe­cu­tion pro­to­col with­out caus­ing unnec­es­sary pain and suf­fer­ing.” Specifically, the DOJ not­ed: (1) there is a risk that indi­vid­u­als who are exe­cut­ed with pen­to­bar­bi­tal will expe­ri­ence flash (acute) pul­monary ede­ma; (2) pen­to­bar­bi­tal may not ade­quate­ly anes­thetize the indi­vid­ual before they expe­ri­ence pul­monary ede­ma; and that (3) flash pul­monary ede­ma cre­ates a sen­sa­tion experts liken to being water­board­ed. The first Trump Administration used this pro­to­col to exe­cute thir­teen peo­ple in 2020 and 2021.

A review of state statutes by DPI indi­cates that 20 of the 27 states that still allow the death penal­ty have statutes that allow sin­gle-drug lethal injec­tion (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and most recent­ly, Tennessee). The remain­ing sev­en death-penal­ty states specif­i­cal­ly autho­rize three-drug pro­to­cols (Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wyoming). Autopsies con­duct­ed on dozens of indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed by fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments in recent years using one-drug pen­to­bar­bi­tal have revealed evi­dence of flash pul­monary ede­ma.