The U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear a challenge to new federal death penalty protocols, potentially clearing the way for the government to resume executions for the first time since 2003. The four death row inmates who filed the lawsuit could file additional challenges. Attorney General William Barr indicated last summer that he intended to resume the use of the death penalty at the federal level using a single drug, pentobarbital. Attorneys for the four inmates have argued that the use of a single drug, rather than the three-drug cocktail required in many states, violates a mandate that federal executions be carried out “in the manner prescribed by the law of the State in which the sentence is imposed.”