CRIME/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Plans by President Donald Trump’s administration to resume executions of inmates sentenced to death for federal crimes is set to face a stiff court challenge, but a judge’s decision on the legality of its new protocol for lethal injections may come too late for five men scheduled to die starting in December. Attorney General William Barr’s July 25 announcement of a single-drug protocol for executing federal prisoners jump-started a long-running civil lawsuit challenging the Justice Department’s capital punishment procedures as a violation of the U.S. Constitution and a federal law governing how regulations are enacted. None of the seven federal death row inmates who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit were among the five selected by Barr for execution, though the legal questions raised in the litigation are directly relevant to those men. The eventual ruling in the suit could come after scheduled new round of executions is carried out on the five men, who were convicted of murder and other charges. The last federal execution took place in 2003.”
–Sarah N. Lynch, “U.S. federal death penalty protocol faces fresh legal scrutiny,” Reuters, July 31, 2019 11:38 am