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   Congressional                                                          _______
           SResearch Service
                nformrng the IegiAative debate since 1914





Federal Capital Punishment: Recent

Developments



October 23, 2019
In July 2019, Attorney General William Barr instructed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to take
action to resume executions of inmates sentenced to death for violating federal law, ending an effective
years-long moratorium. At the Attorney General's direction, BOP's then-Acting Director scheduled five
federal inmates for execution in December 2019 and January 2020. A new addendum to BOP's execution
protocol will govern the executions. That addendum provides for injection of a single drug, pentobarbital
sodium, as the lethal agent. The BOP protocol previously called for application of a three-drug sequence,
but the scarcity of the drugs involved and a review initiated by the previous Administration (as well as
ongoing legal challenges) forestalled federal executions under the three-drug protocol after 2003.
The resumption of federal executions could affect extant litigation challenging BOP's execution protocol.
In particular, at least one of the inmates scheduled to be executed previously sued the federal government,
alleging that the execution protocol calling for three-drug lethal injection violated the Constitution and
statutory requirements for agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). That lawsuit has
been on hold since 2013, but BOP's recent actions have prompted a flurry of activity in the suit and
related challenges to the federal execution protocol. Congress has also responded: in August, a
Subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the Acting Director of BOP and the
Attorney General seeking documents and information regarding the decision to resume executions, and
bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate that would prohibit imposition of the death
penalty for any violation of federal law. In light of these developments, this Sidebar provides a brief
overview of the federal death penalty and some of the legal issues arising from BOP's recent actions as
they relate to Congress.

Overview of Federal Capital Punishment
The death penalty is contemplated in the text of the Constitution and has been available as a punishment
for certain violations of federal law for most of the nation's history. However, several Supreme Court
decisions from the 1970s recognized that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual
punishment places important limitations on imposition of the death penalty, and aspects of those cases are
now reflected in federal law. First, in a splintered decision in Furman v. Georgia, a plurality of the Court
concluded that the death penalty was being administered in an arbitrary manner. Furman resulted in a

                                                                 Congressional Research Service
                                                                   https://crsreports.congress.gov
                                                                                      LSB10357

CRS Legal Sidebar
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress

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