The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate the federal death penalty.
A lower court blocked the first federal execution in nearly two decades just days before it was scheduled to take place. The administration turned to the Supreme Court on Monday after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals summarily declined its appeal, asking justices to permit the execution of men who, the government says, have committed “crimes of staggering brutality.”
In its brief, the federal government called the lower court’s holding “meritless,” contending that it misunderstood federal law governing executions. It further insisted that continued delay would “undermine [the] retributive and deterrent functions of the death penalty,” an argument that the Court’s conservatives have made in past.
It was this same concern for swift and certain justice that animated Attorney General William Barr’s reinstatement of the federal death penalty in July. He instructed the Bureau of Prisons to prepare to execute five convicted murderers. – READ MORE