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The federal government will resume executing death row inmates after nearly two decades without doing so, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.

Attorney General William Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons to schedule the executions of five inmates convicted of murder and other crimes. The executions have been scheduled for December 2019 and January 2020.

The department also announced a new execution protocol, replacing the three-drug cocktail previously used in federal executions with the single drug, pentobarbital.

The last federal execution was carried out in 2003. There are 62 individuals on federal death row, according to a tracker maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center.

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The Justice Department's announcement that the federal government will resume its use of capital punishment has raised questions about the drugs it plans to use.

After a years-long hiatus in executions, the government will switch its lethal injection method. In the announcement, Attorney General William Barr said, instead of the usual combination of three drugs, federal executioners will now use pentobarbital, a single drug used by states including Georgia, Missouri and Texas.

Though the Department of Justice did not comment on the reason for the change, it may be related to lawsuits that followed botched executions conducted with the three-drug method.

However, this new single-drug method comes with its own set of problems, according to experts in lethal injection. And other types of lethal injection have resulted in failed or painful executions. The following are the most common drugs and methods used in lethal injection, and the controversies they have provoked.

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Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
That's not good. I don't see why we can't just get the hell rid of this anachronism.