The U.S. government intends to resume capital punishment after a 16-year hiatus with plans in the coming months to execute five death-row inmates convicted of murder, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.
Attorney General William Barr has directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to adopt an execution protocol, clearing the way for the execution of the five prisoners, according to a department statement. Three of the executions are scheduled for December and two for January 2020.
The last federal execution in the United States took place in 2003 when Gulf War veteran Louis Jones was put to death for the kidnapping and murder of a 19-year-old soldier.
There are currently 65 inmates on federal death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. More than half of the 50 U.S. states have capital punishment laws.
"Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people's representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the president," Barr said in a statement. "Under administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding."
Among the five convicts currently on death row is Daniel Lewis Lee, a member of a white supremacist group, who was convicted in 1999 of murdering a family of three, including an 8-year-old girl. All five convicts have exhausted all their appeals and other remedies, the department said.
Capital punishment was halted in the United States in 1972 after the Supreme Court ruled it an "arbitrary punishment." But it was later partially reinstated in 1988, leading to the execution of three death row inmates.
The United States is the only Western country where executions still take place. Twenty-nine states currently have death penalty laws. Last year, 25 death-row inmates were executed in the United States. The death penalty has been virtually abolished in Europe, where Belarus is the only country that still allows it.