The U.S. Department of Justice has proposed a bill to Congress to bolster the use of the death penalty in both state and federal courts, in a bid to advance a related executive order President Donald Trump signed at the beginning of his second term.

In a letter sent last month to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., the DOJ urged lawmakers to propose a suite of "reforms ... by amending existing provisions that are overtly biased against the imposition of capital sentences." This letter, posted publicly on the DOJ website, has not previously been reported on. 

One of the many executive orders Trump signed on Inauguration Day in 2025 directed the attorney general to pursue the death penalty for the most severe crimes and to encourage state attorneys general and state district attorneys to pursue it as well.

"The executive order directs a range of remedial measures ... whose implementation is severely constrained by deficiencies in existing law," Patrick Davis, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, said in the letter Sept. 21. "The proposed Death Penalty Act of 2026 provides the legislative changes needed to correct these deficiencies."

Specifically, the bill suggests "reforms to remedy unjustified impediments to the execution of capital sentences" by authorizing the attorney general to set the "manner and location" of executions; making confidential who supplies the lethal injection drugs and who are involved in executions; and exempting drugs used in executions from requirements under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Additionally, the Death Penalty Act of 2026 seeks to stop delays in carrying out executions and to limit federal courts' ability to review state court decisions and sentences. Davis has sent the same letter to Vice President JD Vance in his capacity as president of the Senate.

"For too long, politicians and judges who oppose capital punishment have defied and subverted the laws of our country," Davis said in the letters, quoting from Trump's executive order. "These efforts to subvert and undermine capital punishment defy the laws of our nation, make a mockery of justice, and insult the victims of these horrible crimes."

Johnson's office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, there have been 50 federal executions since 1927. Thirteen of them took place between July 14, 2020, and January 16, 2021 — during Trump's first term. This came after a 17-year hiatus in federal executions.

Three federal executions were carried out between June 2001 and March 2003. Before that, the last one was in March 1963.

At the state level, 27 states currently have the death penalty, but four states — California, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have an executive hold keeping them from carrying out executions, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

Additionally, in Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee paused executions for the remainder of the year while an investigation takes place into the botched execution — the second in the state this year — on Sept. 30 of Christa Pike, who was convicted in 1995 of first-degree murder.

The situation has reignited the national debate over capital punishment, further amplified by U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's announcement last week that the military will livestream the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan. Hasan, who was a U.S. Army psychiatrist, shot 13 people in Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.

The last time a member of the military was executed was in 1961, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and the last time a firing squad was used in the military was in 1945.

--Editing by Lakshna Mehta.