U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Plans To Bring Back Federal Death Penalty

The highest court in the U.S. blocked plans to bring back the
death penalty on a federal level on Friday, days before a planned
execution.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied an urgent application from the
government to allow cases to resume after a 16-year hiatus, which
effectively halted the executions of four men due to be put to
death over the next few weeks, U.S. media including the New York
Times reported.

Attorney General William Barr, seen as an arch-conservative,
announced he was bringing back the death penalty in July, declaring
that the federal government planned to execute five people
convicted of murder, including a white supremacist.

President Donald Trump has been a long-time vocal advocate of
the death penalty, going back to his days as an outspoken
real-estate mogul.

As president, he has kept up a hard-line approach.

U.S. states individually decide whether to use capital
punishment in their criminal justice systems.

The federal system is separate to those of the 50 states and
other jurisdictions.

Some 20 states have banned the death penalty, while others have
not carried out executions in decades.

The last time the federal government executed someone was in
2003, one of only a small handful of such cases since the death
penalty was reinstated at the federal level in 1988.

Part of the legal challenge to the use of the death penalty at
the federal level relates to appeals over the protocol of
execution, which is lethal injection. (dpa/NAN)