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1 1 (April 27, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdaes0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 








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 Federal Capital Punishment: Recent

 Developments



 Updated April 27, 2020


 Update 412712020: OnApril 7, 2020, apanel of the US. Court ofAppeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C.
 Circuit) t acOte the district court's preliminary order barring the federal inmates 'executions from going
forward. Two judges on the three-judge panel agreed that the district court misconstrued the Federal
Death Penalty Act (FDPA), though the judges disagreed on the precise scope of the FDPA 's requirement
that federal executions be implemented in the manner prescribed by the state of conviction. In light of
the panel ruling, the federal inmates have sought rchearing by the full D. C. Circuit. Eventual Supreme
Court review is a possibility as well, and some claims would remain to be addressed by the district court
on remand from the D.C. Circuit regardless.


Update 1112212019: 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 relief and the Department of
Justice 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 schcduLed five
federal inmates for execution in December 2019 and January 2020. A new addenduam 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 cafled for application of a three-drug sequence,
                                                                 Congressional Research Service
                                                                   https://crsreports.congress.gov
                                                                                      LSB10357

 CRS LegMi Sidebar
 Prepared for Members and
 Committees ot Congress ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................

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