PRESSLEY, DURBIN CALL ON DOJ TO RESCIND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S HARMFUL FEDERAL EXECUTION AMENDMENTS
26 Members of Congress sent follow-up endorsement letter to DOJ; also urge DOJ to keep in place the current moratorium on federal executions, including withdrawing all pending death notices and authorizing no new death notices
WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, submitted a comment letter in response to a Department of Justice (DOJ) Request for Information (RFI) regarding the regulations governing federal executions. The comment letter urges DOJ to rescind all of the Trump Administration’s November 27, 2020, amendments to the manner of execution regulations. These amendments allowed former Attorney General William Barr and DOJ to bypass certain regulatory steps in ordering federal executions; expand the permissible methods of execution beyond lethal injection; and authorize the use of state facilities and personnel in federal executions, among other changes.
Twenty six co-sponsors of the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act, of which Pressley and Durbin are the lead sponsors, subsequently submitted a letter to Attorney General Garland endorsing the Durbin/Pressley comment letter and urging the Attorney General to rescind the Trump amendments. Full text of that letter can be found here.
Both letters also urge Attorney General Garland to keep in place the current moratorium on federal executions, which began on July 1, 2021, even after the present review has ended; and ask Attorney General Garland to take the further steps of withdrawing all pending death notices, and authorizing no new death notices.
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