UPDATE on the litigation over DOJ’s attempts to resume federal executions. The men who DOJ is seeking to execute have now responded to DOJ’s request at #SCOTUS for a stay of a lower court injunction (which would, if granted, allow DOJ to execute the men). supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/1… 
Here’s my prior thread (which contains an embedded reference to the thread before that and so on, all the way back through the DC Circuit to the initial district court injunction) on the SCOTUS request from DOJ:
Tonight, lawyers for the men DOJ is trying to execute push back on DOJ’s absurd arguments about who could be “irreparably harmed” in EXECUTION LITIGATION. (I know, we’re in upside-down-land here, but DOJ is arguing it’s them.)
This brief is a model in crisp, concise, effective brief-writing. (As others have noted, counsel of record is Cate Stetson, from Hogan Lovells.) Here's the opening:
There is no mincing of words in this brief.
The lawyers for the men make plain precisely *why* all of the judges below (two Dem appointee, two GOP appointee) have ruled against DOJ's request to lift the stays of execution.
The lawyers for the men make plain precisely *why* all of the judges below (two Dem appointee, two GOP appointee) have ruled against DOJ's request to lift the stays of execution.
Here is the very brief summary of why the district court granted a stay, the "merits" of the argument, an argument that DOJ is trying to short-circuit by seeking a stay from SCOTUS allowing it to execute the men before their case can be heard on the merits:
Seriously, this: "The Government's self-inflicted harm ..." / DOJ held off 8 years — even 2.5 years into the Trump admin — and then said, "Here's the new protocol & here are the execution dates, which would be before any real challenge could be considered." A stay was inevitable.
The discussion of "public interest" — and, more to the point, DOJ's misuse of this part of the argument for a stay — represents a complete abrogation by DOJ of its role to do justice. (And, there's a mischaracterization of their misused argument on top of that.)
DOJ's stay request should be denied 9-0, as this brief makes clear.
My bottom line: While DOJ keeps reciting Bucklew's "The Constitution allows capital punishment," line, DOJ's lawyers ignore the ethical and legal responsibilities that go along with doing so. At the least, if DOJ can't follow its own laws governing executions, it can't execute.
UPDATE: A second stay of execution has been issued by a different federal court, on different claims, in Daniel Lewis Lee’s case. Lee’s scheduled execution was the first of the federal executions that DOJ is trying to carry out.
Unsurprisingly, DOJ is appealing the second stay of execution as well. This one to the 7th Circuit (for now).
