tag | capital punishment

A federal judge in Washington has blocked federal executions scheduled for this week, citing concerns that the lethal injection protocol involved is “very likely to cause extreme pain and needless suffering.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined a special petition to review the constitutionality of the death penalty but says it will still consider the fairness of individual cases.

Only three people have been executed in Pennsylvania since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978, the last of them in 1999. Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf put a moratorium on executions when he took office in 2015.