Barr v. Roane

The application for stay or vacatur presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is denied. We expect that the Court of Appeals will render its decision with appropriate dispatch. Statement of JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE GORSUCH and JUSTICE KAVANAUGH join, respecting the denial of stay or vacatur. The District Court for the District of Columbia has preliminarily enjoined the Federal Government from carrying out the execution of four prisoners who were convicted in federal court more than 15 years ago for exceptionally heinous murders. In this action, none of the four is contesting his guilt or his sentence, but the District Court enjoined the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) from carrying out these executions based on its interpretation of a statute, 18 U. S. C. §3596(a), directing that federal executions be implemented “in the manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence is imposed.” This means, the Government contends, that the mode of execution (i.e., by lethal injection, electrocution, etc.) must be the same as that called for under the law of the State in question, but the District Court held instead that a federal execution must follow all the procedures that would be used in an execution in that State— down to the selection of the way a catheter is inserted.Barr v. Roane