Appeals court rejects Trump DOJ request to resume executions

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Monday denied the Justice Department’s efforts to lift a temporary halt on four federal executions.

The department had appealed a trial judge’s ruling last month that ordered a stay of the executions while a separate legal challenge to the Trump administration’s new lethal injection protocol plays out.

The longest-running of the four lawsuits was filed 16 years ago, and the cases went dormant during the Obama administration amid a shortage of lethal injection drugs.

The first of the four executions was set for December 9. The only other federal death row prisoner with an upcoming execution received a stay from another circuit court.

In July, Attorney General William Barr announced that federal executions would resume with the launch of a new lethal injection protocol that utilizes a single drug, pentobarbital, in lieu of the previous three-drug “cocktail” that was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.