The United States government has announced that they will be resuming capital punishment.

Criminals are still put to death in some states whereas others have banned it outright even for the most serious crimes.

But today Donald Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr said that federal executions will resume.

The death penalty was last used at the federal level almost two decades ago.

In the announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice said the decision was made related to "five death-row inmates convicted of murdering, and in some cases torturing and raping, the most vulnerable in our society -children and the elderly."

Mr Barr said: “Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President.

“The Justice Department upholds the rule of law – and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”

The first person to be executed is a member of a white supremacist group, Daniel Lewis Lee. He murdered a family of three including an eight-year-old girl in 1999.

He will be put to death on December 9, pending any appeals.

The method of execution will be a lethal injection.

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