DOJ authorizes use of executions including hanging / death by firing squad

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The US Department of Justice has expanded rules governing executions to permit a wider rage of methods, including firing squads and electrocution, as five federal inmates are set to face the death penalty before Inauguration Day.
The amended rule was entered into the Federal Register on Friday, permitting the government “greater flexibility” to carry out capital punishment using any method “prescribed by the law of the state in which [a] sentence was imposed.” While lethal injection remains the most common means of execution — and previously the only one permitted under federal regulations — the new rule will accommodate states that allow for alternative methods, including death by electrocution, nitrogen gas, hanging or firing squad.