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1 1 (November 22, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbbwv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Federal Capital Punishment: Recent Developments Updated November 22, 2019 Update: After this Sidebar was published, two more of the federal inmates scheduled for execution joined the litigation challenging the 2019 execution protocol and filed motions seeking preliminary orders barring their executions from going forward. On November 20, 2019, the district court granted the motions, concluding that the 2019 execution protocol's uniform procedure approach very likely exceeds the authority provided by Congress because the Federal Death Penalty Act specifies that federal executions must be implemented in the manner prescribed by the state of conviction. As a result of the court's order, it appears that the executions of the four inmates who filed motions will not take place as scheduled, though the order only relates to requests for preliminary reliefand the Department ofJustice has filed a notice of appeal. The fifth inmate's execution has also been stayed by a federal appellate court so that an unrelated issue in his case can be reviewed. The original post from October 23, 2019, is below. 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 leter 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 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10357 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and C om m ittee s ot C onr ess -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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