U.S. Issues Rule to Return Death Penalty : Crime: Outlining of procedures for future executions is first step toward restoring federal capital punishment.

The federal government, which has not put a prisoner to death since 1963, took the first step Monday toward resuming the practice by specifying the circumstances under which executions will occur and choosing lethal injection as its method.

A Justice Department rule outlining the procedures to be followed in future federal executions was published in the Federal Register by Atty. Gen. William P. Barr. It is scheduled to take effect after a 30-day public comment period.

The rule-making comes as the federal government prepares to begin carrying out death sentences after a 29-year hiatus. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing capital punishment laws two decades ago and Congress was slow to revise federal law to conform to the standards articulated by the high court.

One federal prisoner currently awaits execution for violation of a 1988 drug law and the government is seeking the death penalty for nine others under the same statute. Citing the growing number of cases under the law, the Justice Department said that “the need for the rule has become imperative.”

Opponents of the death penalty denounced Barr’s action as premature and politically motivated. They argued that the Bush Administration should leave to the next Congress the selection of what method to use for executing prisoners.

Paul McNulty, Barr’s chief spokesman, rejected the criticism, saying the proposed rule is “a regulatory follow-up that will effectuate their (Congress’) decision” to restore the federal death penalty. Responding to suggestions that the timing of the rule-making might represent a parting shot by outgoing Bush Administration officials, McNulty added: “I don’t know what they expect the incoming (Clinton) Administration to do differently.”

The federal prisoner awaiting execution is David Ronald Chandler. He was sentenced to death in federal court in Alabama in May, 1991, after being convicted of ordering the murder of a police informant and engaging in a drug conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise and money laundering.

David Bruck, a South Carolina attorney who assists federal public defenders and court-appointed lawyers in death sentence cases, said possible imposition of the sentence against Chandler is “many, many months--really years--away.”

He said that Chandler’s appeal has yet to be heard by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and asserted that prospects for reversal are good. “Mr. Barr obviously wants one more blast of death penalty publicity before he goes,” Bruck said.

“I’m not sure why he (Barr) would want to railroad something through in the next 30 days,” said Leigh Dingerson, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. “Congress ought to have the opportunity” of specifying the method to be employed, she added.

The proposed rule authorizes the director of the Bureau of Prisons to set the date, time and place of execution. This “will obviate the practice, which is a pointless source of delay in state cases, of seeking a new execution date from the sentencing court each time a higher court lifts a stay of execution that caused an earlier execution date to pass,” Barr said.

In 1984, Congress repealed a 1937 law that said federal executions were to be carried out in the manner prescribed in the state where the sentence was imposed. The proposed new rule specifies intravenous injection of a lethal substance as the means of execution and notes that the method is increasingly used by states.

Death sentences would be carried out at federal penal institutions by a U.S. marshal chosen by the director of his agency. The rule would provide that unless the President “interposes, the U.S. marshal shall not stay execution of the sentence on the basis that the prisoner has filed a petition for executive clemency.”

The Supreme Court struck down existing death penalty laws in 1972 because they tended to impose capital punishment in an arbitrary fashion. Four years later, the court upheld newly passed state laws that conformed to certain standards of fairness.

Since the death penalty was restored in 1976, 186 prisoners have been put to death in the United States.

Even before the landmark 1972 ruling, relatively few death penalty cases were prosecuted under federal law. The last federal execution took place on March 15, 1963, when Victor Feguer was hanged for kidnaping in Iowa.