Judge Halts Federal Executions

In August, we reported that five federal death-row inmates would be executed by lethal injection within the next six months after Attorney General William P. Barr proposed resuming the death penalty after a 16-year moratorium. On Wednesday, a federal judge halted the four remaining scheduled federal executions after finding that Barr's proposal appears to be at odds with federal law.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the District of Columbia stated that the inmates were likely to succeed in their argument that Barr's proposal to execute all four men using one type of lethal injection contradicts the Federal Death Penalty Act. The four executions were scheduled to take place in December and January 2020. Read more about this from Catholic News Service.