Indiana State Troopers block a road leading to the Federal Correctional Institution, Terre Haute, as officials await word about the stay of execution issued for Daniel Lewis Lee, who is convicted in the killing of three members of an Arkansas family in 1996, and would be the first federal execution in 17 years at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S. July 13, 2020. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston
(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the first federal executions in 17 years could proceed, overturning an injunction blocking them in order to allow legal challenges to the government’s lethal-injection protocol to continue.
“The Government has produced competing expert testimony of its own, indicating that any pulmonary edema occurs only after the prisoner has died or been rendered fully insensate,” the court said.
“We vacate the District Court’s preliminary injunction so that the plaintiffs’ executions may proceed as planned,” it added.
Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens