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The approved amendment to the “Mode of Federal Executions” rule gives federal prosecutors a greater variety of execution options to avoid delays if the state in which the detainee was convicted does not offer alternative alternatives.
Attorney General William Barr and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs pushed the rule forward. Once the approved amendment is published in the Federal Register – which a Justice Department official said could have happened as early as Friday – it will go into effect in 30 days.
This may ultimately be irrelevant since President-elect Joe Biden has campaigned to abolish the federal death penalty and four of the five inmates to be executed already have their chosen way – lethal injection.
“The (Federal Death Penalty Act), which was enacted by President Clinton, requires that federal sentences be carried out in the manner prescribed by states, some of which use methods other than lethal injection. The regulation was proposed in August to explain this, ”a Justice Department official told CNN in an email.
The Justice Department did not respond to additional questions about why the new rule was adopted.
It also suggests that if the state where the crime was committed does not allow the death sentence, a judge can designate another state with those laws and use its facilities to carry out the execution.
But a Justice Department official said “the federal government will never execute a detainee by firing squad or by electrocution unless the state concerned has itself authorized this method of execution.”
Lawyers involved in death penalty cases have argued that the use of lethal injection of pentobarbital< non prescrite >> constitutes a violation of the law on food, drugs and cosmetics and subjects an inmate to< les effets d'un œdème pulmonaire éclair >> condition where fluid quickly floods the lungs, according to court documents.
These arguments were dismissed by the Supreme Court and a federal judge, who ruled that it was not “certain” or “likely” that such an event could occur if lethal injection was used and it was does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation of “cruel and unusual punishment”, according to court documents.
“No one in the Federal District of Death has committed the offense in a state that uses the firing squad to execute prisoners,” Robert Dunham, executive director of the Sentencing Information Center, said on Twitter Thursday. of death.
When the Department of Justice rule is released for future death penalty cases, prosecutors could ask the judge to transfer the case to another state such as Oklahoma, Utah or Mississippi, where the platoons of execution are allowed.
Four of the inmates, including Brandon Bernard – the youngest in the United States to be sentenced to death for a crime he committed as a teenager – and Lisa Montgomery – the only woman on federal death row, reportedly the first to be executed in close proximity 70 years old – should receive the lethal injection.
Montgomery was granted a stay of execution until December 31 after his lawyers were diagnosed with the coronavirus. Its execution date is set for January 12.
The Trump administration has rejected Montgomery’s request for a stay. Bernard’s latest request to stay his execution was rejected by the Supreme Court last week.
There are currently 54 people in the Federal District of Death. Bernard is the next performance scheduled for December 10.
This story was updated on Sunday with more information from the Department of Justice on the proposed regulations.
Jessica Schneider of CNN contributed to this report.
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