JUDGE BLOCKS FEDERAL EXECUTIONS

A judge on Monday blocked the Justice Department from resuming federal executions as planned this week, setting up a new front in the myriad legal challenges to the Trump administration’s push to start carrying out capital punishment after a nearly two-decade hiatus.

The Justice Department’s plan to carry out the first federal executions since 2003 has led to numerous court battles between the government and death-row inmates, their spiritual advisers and even relatives of victims in one case.

In an order Monday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia wrote that she was blocking the Justice Department from executing inmates as scheduled — including three set to take place this week, beginning with one Monday afternoon — saying it was necessary to let their legal challenges to the government’s lethal-injection protocol play out in court.

Chutkan wrote that “the public interest is not served by executing individuals before they have had the opportunity to avail themselves of the legal process to challenge the legality of their executions.”

An attorney for the death-row inmates praised the decision. The Justice Department quickly appealed it, both to the circuit court and to the Supreme Court, asking them to lift the stay.

In one filing, the department said extensive preparations were under way for the execution and Chutkan’s order served “to scramble those plans with a meritless injunction.” A spokesman for the department declined to comment on her order beyond its court filings.