Appeals court won’t let federal executions resume

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Monday denied the Trump administration’s request to lift an injunction blocking it from resuming federal executions next week, setting up a likely escalation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit means that — at least temporarily — the status quo remains in place. The administration’s plans to restart federal executions after a 16-year hiatus are still blocked by a judge’s injunction, issued last month, that prohibited four deathrow inmates from being executed while they challenge the government’s lethal-injection procedure in court.

In a brief order, a threejudge panel unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s motion to stay or vacate the injunction. The panel offered no commentary on the merits of the Justice Department’s appeal, saying only that its request to stay or vacate the injunction had “not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal.”

The three circuit court judges who issued the order are Judith Rogers, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton; Thomas Griffith, appointed by President George W. Bush; and Neomi Rao, appointed by President Trump earlier this year.

The order means the Justice Department’s plans to carry out federal death sentences in December and January — beginning with the first planned for Saturday — are still on hold. The department is expected to keep challenging this, though, and has previously written in court filings that it planned to “seek relief in the Supreme Court absent relief here.”

A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. An attorney for some of the death-row inmates, meanwhile, praised the appeals court’s move.