WASHINGTON DC – FOR the first time in 16 years, executions of federal death row inmates will take place, the US Justice Department has said.
Five death row inmates are scheduled to be executed in December, the Associated Press is reporting.
After a botched state execution in Oklahoma in 2014, the then President Barack Obama instructed the department to conduct a broad review of capital punishment and issues surrounding lethal injection drugs, AP stated.
That review has been completed and the executions can continue, the department said.
According to AP, the US Government has executed only three defendants since restoring the federal death penalty in 1988. The most recent one occurred in 2003, when Louis Jones was executed for the 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of a young female soldier.
In a release, US Attorney General William Barr said, “Congress has expressly authorised the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President.”
He said, “The Justice Department upholds the rule of law and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”
