Federal Appeals Court Panel Clears Path To Executions, Throwing Out Lower Court Order
Two judges appointed by President Trump to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals prevailed Tuesday in a ruling that clears the way for the executions of four inmates.
The only dissenter in the 3-2 ruling was Judge David Tatel, an appointee of that had blocked the scheduled executions.The fates of the four men remain unresolved because their death sentences were sent back to the lower court for further proceedings. At issue is the question of whether the condemned men should be put to death by the injection of only one barbiturate â pentobarbital â as called for in the Justice Department's July 2019 memo.Pharmaceutical companies have stopped producing at least one of the three drugs used in that lethal mixture, and several have resulted from some states using untested formulas. Judge Gregory Katsas argues in his majority opinion that the "manner prescribed" simply refers to the method of execution rather than the protocols each state follows in carrying out each kind of execution. Judge Neomi Rao, in a concurring opinion, argues that while the word "manner" refers not only to the method of execution, it cannot be interpreted in isolation. "It is a broad, flexible term," she says, "whose specificity depends on context.""Had Congress intended to authorize the Attorney General to adopt a uniform execution protocol," Tatel argues, "it knew exactly how to do so."
