BREAKING NEWS: US Attorney General Merrick Garland orders halt on federal executions after sharing multiple concerns about capital punishment with DoJ official US Attorney General Merrick Garland orders halt on federal executions after telling officials that capital punishment is too arbitrary The attorney general said the death penalty disproportionately targets people of color and risks wrongly killing innocent people Executions ordered by the US government were halted for close to two decades over shortages of drugs used for lethal injections But Attorney General Bill Barr - who served under Donald Trump - ordered them to resume in 2019 The Trump administration carried out 13 executions between July 2020 and January 2021 By Brian Stieglitz For Dailymail.Com Published: 01:14 BST, 2 July 2021 | Updated: 01:14 BST, 2 July 2021 Viewcomments US Attorney General Merrick Garland orders halt on federal executions after telling officials that capital punishment is too arbitrary, disproportionately targets people of color, and risks wrongly killing innocent people. Garland sent a memo to Department of Justice Officials Thursday sharing his 'serious concerns' over federal executions, including the 'troubling number of exonerations' for people sentenced to death. The AG's statement added: 'The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States but is also treated fairly and humanly.' Federal executions are entirely separate to those carried out by individual states with the death penalty on their statute books. Those states can continue to put prisoners to death at their discretion. Executions ordered by the US government were halted for close to two decades over shortages of drugs used for lethal injections, and concerns that method of putting prisoners to death was inhumane. But Attorney General Bill Barr - who served under Donald Trump - ordered them to resume in 2019. That saw 13 prisoners put to death by the federal government between July 2020 and January 2021. Joe Biden, who is anti-capital punishment, ordered them halted after he began his term as president. Share or comment on this article: All rights reserved for this news site (dailymail) and under his responsibility