Supreme Court temporarily blocks resumption of federal executions

Richard Wolf | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Texas prisons ban all chaplains from execution chamber The ban was in response to the Supreme Court holding an execution when Texas wouldn't allow a Buddhist chaplain in the chamber.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration Friday from resuming executions of federal prisoners after a 16-year hiatus.

The court upheld a lower court's injunction imposed last month after lawyers for four death-row prisoners claimed their executions by lethal injection would violate federal law. But the justices said they expected the claim would be handled by a federal appeals court "with appropriate dispatch."

The ruling was a setback for Attorney General William Barr, who announced in July that the federal government would conduct its first executions since 2003 using the single drug pentobarbital. The drug is used in many but not all states.

The Justice Department expressed disappointment with the ruling but vowed to argue the case at the appeals court, and the Supreme Court if necessary.

"The Department of Justice is committed to upholding the rule of law and to carrying forward sentences imposed by our justice system,” said spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.

Three conservative justices – Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – indicated they expect the Trump administration to prevail within 60 days, and the executions will go forward.

More: Death penalty sentences, executions remained at near-record lows in 2018

Federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled last month that the executions would conflict with provisions of a 1994 federal law, under which the federal government is supposed to follow protocols used by the states in which the prisoners were sentenced.

"The public interest is not served by executing individuals before they have had the opportunity to avail themselves of legitimate procedures to challenge the legality of their executions," Chutkan wrote.

That ruling was upheld Monday by a three-judge federal appeals court panel that included two named by Republican presidents, including Neomi Rao, a nominee of President Donald Trump.

More: Supreme Court troubled by planned use of lethal injection to execute prisoner with rare condition

U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco argued in court papers that using lethal injection complies with the law, despite the prisoners' contention that more detailed state procedures also must be followed.

Francisco said that would undermine "common sense" because it could force the federal government to use less reliable forms of lethal injection, including one that four Supreme Court justices have said could be "the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake."

In those cases, "the federal government would be barred from adopting procedures designed to be more humane than those used by the relevant state," Francisco said.

Alito and his two colleagues stressed that point in their two-page statement. The prisoners' preference, they said, "would demand that the (Bureau of Prisons) pointlessly copy minor details of a state’s protocol; and it could well make it impossible to carry out executions of prisoners sentenced in some states."

Fourteen states led by Arizona sided with the Justice Department, telling the high court that pentobarbital "is a fast-acting barbiturate that can reliably induce and maintain a coma-like state that renders a person insensate to pain."

Shawn Nolan, one of the attorneys for the men facing execution, hailed the high court's action.

“Three courts have now agreed that the federal government’s new execution protocol must be fully adjudicated before it can be used to carry out executions," Nolan said. "The courts have made clear that the government cannot rush executions in order to evade judicial review of the legality and constitutionality of its new execution procedure.”

All four federal inmates were unanimously convicted more than 15 years ago of brutal crimes including murder, torture and rape. Children were among the murder victims in each case.

Only three men have been executed by the government since the federal death penalty was restored in 1988. The first was Timothy McVeigh, executed in 2001 for the 1995 bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building in which 168 people died.

Among the 62 federal death-row prisoners are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and Dylann Roof, who killed nine people inside a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015.