Read on Twitter
Thread—The federal government has promulgated a new rule on the Manner of Federal Executions that has prompted a spate of sensationalized headlines and news stories. Here is the actual regulation and how you can determine what it actually does. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/05/2020-15039/manner-of-federal-executions @DPInfoCtr
1. The regulation permits the federal government to select between execution methods authorized by federal or state law. It does not make firing squad, lethal gas, or electrocution a default method of execution. ... @DPInfoCtr #deathpenalty
2. Federal option — In terms of lethal injection, the regulation permits the Federal Bureau of Prisons to select what drug or combination of drugs to be used in carrying out an execution. ... @DPInfoCtr #deathpenalty
3. State option — The regulation also permits the Bureau of Prisons to carry out an execution "by any other manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence was imposed or which has been designated by a court in accordance with 18 U.S.C. 3596(a)." @DPInfoCtr
4. What are the state options? — You can find the state options on the @DPInfoCtr Methods of Execution webpage: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/methods-of-execution. We list each method of execution and each state that currently authorizes it. #deathpenalty
5. Every state that authorizes capital punishment has lethal injection as its primary method of execution. To find the drug protocols used by states, see our State-by-State Lethal Injection Protocols page: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/lethal-injection/state-by-state-lethal-injection-protocols @DPInfoCtr #deathpenalty
6. Technically, the regulation would permit federal executions by the back-up method of firing squad. That could conceivably apply only to federal prisoners sentenced to death in Mississippi, Oklahoma, or Utah, if the conditions triggering the back-up method apply. @DPInfoCtr
7. No one is on federal death row (or has ever been sentenced to death) for offenses committed in Mississippi or Utah under existing federal death penalty statutes. @DPInfoCtr
8. Two prisoners are currently on federal death row for offenses committed in Oklahoma. Both have habeas litigation under way. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/federal-death-penalty/list-of-federal-death-row-prisoners @DPInfoCtr #deathpenalty
9. And #Oklahoma authorizes firing squad only if (in order) lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, and electrocution are all held to be unconstitutional or “otherwise unavailable.” Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22 § 1014. @DPInfoCtr #deathpenalty
So, bottom line: there is VIRTUALLY NO POSSIBILITY that anyone on the U.S. federal death row will be executed by firing squad and headlines that imply otherwise are irresponsible, inflammatory, and grossly exaggerated. @DPInfoCtr #deathpenalty
