Attorney General William Barr has reinstated the death penalty for federal crimes following a 16-year moratorium, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.

Barr’s order includes instructions to schedule the executions of five inmates currently incarcerated on death row for murder.

The Justice Department on Thursday said it would go back to executing federal death-row inmates for the first time in nearly two decades—a move capital punishment opponents quickly denounced as a step backward for criminal justice reform in the country.

“It’s distressing,” said Madeline Cohen, a capital defense attorney who represents three inmates on federal death row. “This administration has a history of taking rash actions, and this one is no exception.”

The question to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, was brutally personal.

“If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Bernard Shaw, a CNN anchor, asked, referring to the Massachusetts governor’s wife. Dukakis said he wouldn’t favor it because “I don’t see any evidence that it is a deterrent.”