The US government will resume its use of capital punishment after a 16-year hiatus and has set execution dates for five convicted murderers, Attorney General Bill Barr announced on Thursday. Acting on President Donald Trump's call for tougher penalties on violent crimes, Barr directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to adopt a new lethal injection protocol to clear the way to carry out death sentences.
"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," Barr said in a statement. There were 25 executions in the US last year, all carried out by state authorities on people convicted on state charges.
But debate about the methods of execution and controversy over the drugs used, as well as reticence from Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, means that no federal prisoner has been put to death since 2003. Barr ordered the Bureau of Prisons to carry out executions using a single lethal injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital, replacing the previous, three-drug cocktails using thiopental.
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