U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is temporarily blocking the administration from resuming federal executions after 16 years, NBC News is reporting.
Chutkan, in a 15-page ruling issued Wednesday night, halted four scheduled executions to allow inmates to challenge a new policy governing how they would be put to death. The four had been scheduled to be executed at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The first execution was set for Dec. 9.
She noted one or more of the four likely were to prevail in legal challenges.
The last federal execution was carried out in 2003.
Attorney General William Barr had announced in July plans to resume executions after protracted litigation over the drugs used in lethal injury executions.
According to Politico he said a new federal death penalty protocol would use a single drug, pentobarbital, instead of a three-drug “cocktail” used in the most recent federal executions.
NBC News noted that Chutkan said in her ruling that Barr’s order conflicts with a federal law specifying that federal executions must use the method “prescribed by the law of the state in which the sentence in imposed.”
"The public interest is not served by executing individuals before they have had the opportunity to avail themselves of legitimate procedures to challenge the legality of their executions," she wrote.
"The public is not served by short-circuiting legitimate process, and is greatly served by attempting to ensure that the most serious punishment is imposed lawfully.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.