TERRE HAUTE, Ind.–Daniel Lewis Lee was convicted to killing a mom, dad and little girl in Arkansas by putting bags over their heads, weighting them down and throwing them in a river. He was to be executed at the federal prison in Terre Haute in December. That likely will not happen.

A judge blocked those four executions that were to be the first federal executions in 16 years.

“The public interest is not served by executing individuals before they have had the opportunity to avail themselves of legitimate procedures to challenge the legality of their executions,” US District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her order issued Wednesday.

The gist of why they were blocked is that the new method for federal executions uses one drug. Indiana’s protocol is for three drugs. The four inmates argued that federal execution protocols must conform to state law.

The four federal inmates who were ordered to be executed are Lee for murdering the family of three, including an 8-year-old girl; Wesley Ira Purkey for raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl; Alfred Bourgeois for torturing and killing his own 2-year-old daughter; Dustin Lee Honken, for shooting and killing five people, including two young girls.

U.S. Atty. Gen. William Barr ordered in July that dates be set for the executions to bring relief to the victims’ families, to execute the worst of the worst.

All four executions were to happen at the federal prison in Terre Haute, and were to be carried out Dec. 9, to Jan. 15.

The 57-year-old Chutkan was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2013.  Her husband, Peter Arno Krauthamer, a judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, was nominated by former President Obama in 2011.