First Federal Lethal Injections in 16 Years?

Right now, the Supreme Court has halted the lethal injections of five death row inmates across states within the US. The Justice Department wanted to resume federal lethal injections, but they were going to bypass a lower-court ruling, but the Supreme Court has overruled that and for now, none of the people on death row get the injections.

This is the first time people are being executed on the federal level by lethal injection since 2003. With Trump being in office, many are not shocked that he nagged to restart injections at the federal level. He supports capital punishment for crimes as small a drug dealing, so most are just confused about how long he took to push for it.

These have been convicted of the murders or rapes of children or the elderly. In many’s minds, this gives a warrant for capital punishment, however for others, nothing does. A representative for the Justice Department stated: “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." However, the Department of Justice is being instructed to use a single drug, pentobarbital, instead of having to inject someone three times. The pentobarbital is a sedative that slows the nervous system to the point of death. So, it would slowly stop their heart. But some are arguing that it goes against federal law to change the execution that was “prescribed by the state of conviction” and under the Federal Death Penalty Act is no exception to that federal law. However, the one injection protocol is the one that they planned to use in the December 2019 - January 2020.

For now, the lethal injections are halted at the federal level, but I am sure that they will follow through on the injections. Right now we have a government and President in support of capital punishment or at least severe punishment for those who commit crimes like rape and murder. There is less of a focus on rehabilitation and a bigger focus on just getting rid of people and killing them. The injections may not happen this month as planned, but I am sure that they will later down the line whether that be months or a year later.

Source https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-wont-let-justice-dept-immediately-resume-federal-executions-after-hiatus/2019/12/06/7103d8e6-1773-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html