The US Supreme Court on Tuesday authorized the resumption of federal executions in the United States after 17 years of interruption, by canceling the suspension of four executions decided the day before by a Washington court.
The Supreme Court had been seized by the Ministry of Justice which had been rejected by a court of appeal of Washington after a decision of a federal judge suspending the executions following last minute appeals.
Federal executions of death row inmates, halted since 2003, were to resume on Monday at the instigation of the Donald Trump government.
The convicts "did not take the necessary steps to justify the last minute intervention of a federal court"
But federal judge Tanya Chutkan, sitting in Washington, had agreed Monday morning with lawyers for Daniel Lee, who was to be executed in the afternoon by lethal injection in the penitentiary of Terre-Haute, Indiana, and three other men who were to die by the end of August. The condemned "did not take the necessary steps to justify the last minute intervention of a federal court", according to a decision of the Supreme Court published early Tuesday. "We are quashing the preliminary injunction of the District Court and the executions can take place as planned."
The Washington Court of Appeal, seized by the Ministry of Justice, had confirmed on Monday the suspension of the four executions at least until next week until the parties present their arguments in writing.
An implementation protocol called into question
The four were sentenced to death by federal courts for the murder of children. The mother of two victims, Earlene Peterson, 81, also seized the Supreme Court on Monday with other family members to obtain the postponement of the execution of Daniel Lee because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Former supporter of white supremacy, Daniel Lee, 47, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the murder of a couple and their 8-year-old girl.
The condemned claim, among other things, that the execution protocol - a lethal dose of penthiobarbital - would cause them "irreparable" suffering in violation of the Constitution, an argument often used by opponents of the death penalty.
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