JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/PRISONERS/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration’s plans to resume federal executions next week for the first time in over 16 years were scuttled Friday [12-6-19] night after the Supreme Court turned down the Justice Department’s emergency bid to lift a lower-court order blocking the plan. The high court’s order came with officials pressing to carry out the first execution by lethal injection Monday at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. One more had been scheduled for the following Friday with two others set to follow next month. No justice publicly dissented from the Supreme Court’s order, but three justices signed onto a brief statement expressing strong doubt about the central legal argument wielded to halt the executions: that federal law requires the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to follow the execution process used by the state where a defendant was convicted.”
–Josh Gerstein, “SCOTUS snubs Trump administration’s execution plans,” Politico, December 6, 2019 7:55 pm