Justice Department appeals bar on federal executions

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A U.S. district judge on Monday ordered a new delay in federal executions, hours before the first lethal injection was scheduled to be carried out at a federal prison in Indiana. The Trump administration immediately appealed to a higher court, asking that the executions move forward.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said there are still legal issues to resolve and that “the public is not served by shortcircuiting legitimate judicial process.” The executions, pushed by the administration, would be the first carried out at the federal level since 2003.

Chutkan said the inmates have presented evidence showing that the government’s plan to use only pentobarbital to carry out the executions “poses an unconstitutionally significant risk of serious pain.”

The Justice Department appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The Bureau of Prisons continued with preparations in order to move forward should the stay be lifted. The man slated for execution Monday, Daniel Lewis Lee has had access to visitors, has met with his spiritual adviser and has been allowed to receive mail, prison officials said. He’s been under constant staff supervision.

The new hold came a day after a federal appeals court lifted a previous hold on the execution of Lee, which was scheduled for 4 p.m. EDT Monday at the federal prison in Terre Haute. He was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her 8yearold daughter, Sarah Powell.

The Lee execution was to be carried out after the appeals court lifted an injunction on Sunday that had been put in place last week after some members of the victims’ family argued they would be put at high risk for the coronavirus if they had to travel to attend.

The decision to move forward with the execution — and two others scheduled later in the week — during a global health pandemic drew criticism from civil rights groups.

In 2014, following a botched state execution in Oklahoma, President Barack Obama directed the Justice Department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs. The attorney general said last July that the Obamaera review had been completed, clearing the way for executions to resume.