Statement of the Acting Attorney General i

Introduction 1

I. History of the Department’s Approach to Capital Crimes 3

A. 1789–2021: The Department Consistently Upheld Its Obligation to Seek and Implement Capital Sentences 3

B. 2021– January 2025: The Department Abandoned Its Obligation to Seek and Implement Capital Sentences 8

1. Attorney General Garland’s 2021 Execution Moratorium 8

2. Attorney General Garland’s 2025 Recission of the Pentobarbital Protocol and Indefinite Suspension of Executions 8

3. Attorney General Garland Refused to Seek the Death Penalty in Appropriate Cases 10

4. Attorney General Garland Undermined States’ Efforts to Expedite Judicial Review of Capital Sentences 12

5. Attorney General Garland Recommended Commuting Thirty-Seven Capital Sentences 13

II. Review of Pentobarbital and Other Available Methods of Execution 19

A. The Garland Report Got the Standard and the Science Wrong 19

1. Wrong on the Standard 20

2. Wrong on the Science 21

B. Execution by Injection of Pentobarbital Complies with the Eighth Amendment and Should Be Readopted into the Federal Execution Protocol 24

1. The Three-Part Bucklew Test 24

2. Application of the Bucklew Test to the Pentobarbital Protocol 26

C. The Federal Execution Protocol Should Include Other Manners of Execution 28

1. Firing Squad 30

2. Electrocution 32

3. Lethal Gas 33

4. Table of Methods of Execution Approved by State Legislatures 35

5. Whether to Permit Selection Between Multiple Methods of Execution 36

III. Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty 39

A. Changes to Department Policies, Procedures, and Priorities 39

B. Legislative Proposals 44

1. Clarifying Statutory Language Regarding Death Penalty Eligible Offenses 45

2. Proposals to Address Delays in the Legal Process 45

3. Administrative Proposals Regarding Time, Place, and Manner 47

Conclusion 48