After Near-Two-Decade Hiatus, Feds to Resume Executions

The federal government will resume executions of federal death row inmates, the Department of Justice announced Thursday, ending a 16-year spell in which not a single federal execution has occurred.

Attorney General William P. Barr issued instructions to the Bureau of Prisons to amend the Federal Execution Protocol, the set of procedures that outline exactly how executions are conducted. According to DOJ, this amendment will clear any procedural hurdles standing in the way of proceeding with executions. In addition, Barr instructed acting BOP director Hugh Hurwitz to schedule the execution of five federal death row inmates convicted of murdering children and the elderly.

"Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding," Barr said. "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 new rules are part and parcel with the Trump administration's hardline stance in favor of capital punishment, but also open opportunities for death penalty opponents to pursue new lines of attack against it.

Under the new rules, the federal execution protocol will change from a three-drug procedure to the administration of a single lethal dose of pentobarbital. DOJ did not specify where they would obtain a supply of pentobarbital. Shortages of the drug, artificially induced by abolitionist lobbying of pharmaceutical firms, were what led many states to switch their execution protocols to the use of more controversial drugs like midazolam.