State & Federal Info

Federal Death Penalty

The federal government can seek death sentences for a limited set of crimes, but federal executions are much more rare than state executions.

Overview

The federal death penalty applies in all 50 states and U.S. territories but is used relatively rarely. There are 40 prisoners on the federal death row, most of whom are imprisoned in Terre Haute, Indiana. Sixteen federal executions have been carried out in the modern era, all by lethal injection, with 13 occurring in a six-month period between July 2020 and January 2021.

The federal death penalty was held unconstitutional following the Supreme Court’s opinion of Furman v. Georgia in 1972. Unlike the quick restoration of the death penalty in most states, the federal death penalty was not reinstated until 1988, and then only for a very narrow class of offenses. The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 greatly expanded the number of eligible offenses to about 60.

The use of the federal death penalty in jurisdictions that have themselves opted not to have capital punishment—such as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and many states—has raised particular concerns about federal overreach into state matters.

News & Developments


News

Jul 06, 2021

Department of Justice Formally Pauses Federal Executions to Review Trump Death-Penalty Regulations

In a mem­o­ran­dum that left to Congress the task of address­ing sys­temic ques­tions of arbi­trari­ness, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, and wrong­ful con­vic­tions affect­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (pic­tured) issued a direc­tive for­mal­ly paus­ing fed­er­al exe­cu­tions while the Department of Justice (DOJ) under­takes a review of exec­u­tive branch poli­cies adopt­ed in the last two years of the Trump administration.

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News

Jan 16, 2024

U.S. Department of Justice Authorizes First Federal Death Penalty Case for Payton Gendron, Teen Who Killed Ten Black People in 2022

On January 12, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it will seek a death sen­tence for Payton Gendron, the then-18-year-old who killed 10 Black peo­ple at a Tops super­mar­ket in Buffalo, New York in 2022. This is the first cap­i­tal case autho­rized by Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Biden Administration’s DOJ. The announce­ment came twen­ty months after the mass shoot­ing and eleven months after Mr. Gendron pled guilty to state first degree mur­der charges and was sen­tenced to mul­ti­ple sen­tences of life with­out parole. Although New…

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News

Jan 09, 2024

Federally Death-Sentenced Prisoners Allege that New Conditions of Confinement Contributed to Recent Prisoner Death

According to state­ments from sev­er­al fed­er­al death row pris­on­ers, the new adverse con­di­tions” on death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, con­tributed to the December 1, 2023 death of Nasih Khalil Ra’id. Fellow pris­on­ers say Mr. Ra’id, whose giv­en name at birth was Odell Corley, died by sui­cide. Prison offi­cials have not released the report from Mr. Ra’id’s autop­sy or com­ment­ed on the cause of his death.

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News

Oct 23, 2023

In New Podcast, Rush to Kill Documents 6‑Month Federal Execution Spree Under President Donald Trump’s Administration

In July 2020, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, under the direc­tion of Attorney General Bill Barr, resumed fed­er­al exe­cu­tions for the first time in 17 years. Over the course of the fol­low­ing six months, 13 fed­er­al death row pris­on­ers were exe­cut­ed. During those six months, the WFIU News team was grant­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to report on and wit­ness all 13 exe­cu­tions at United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute in Indiana. In the time since these exe­cu­tions, the WFIU News team col­lect­ed doc­u­ments and inter­viewed those con­nect­ed to every fed­er­al execution…

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News

Oct 06, 2023

New Details Emerge Surrounding Federal Executions Under Trump Administration

A recent arti­cle by Associated Press jour­nal­ist Michael Tarm reports new details about the thir­teen fed­er­al exe­cu­tions that took place in 20192020, includ­ing last-minute clemen­cy appeals for death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers like Brandon Bernard. Mr. Tarm wit­nessed ten of the exe­cu­tions and spoke with a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als who were involved in the process for his sto­ry. As a result of these inter­views, he says that the fuller pic­ture that has emerged shows that offi­cials cut cor­ners and relied on a pli­ant Supreme Court to get the exe­cu­tions done, even…

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News

Oct 03, 2023

Analysis Shows Supreme Court’s Changing View of Death Penalty Cases

A recent analy­sis by Bloomberg Law con­clud­ed that death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have few­er avenues to relief at the Supreme Court than ever before. Bloomberg iden­ti­fied 270 emer­gency requests to stay exe­cu­tions since 2013 and found that the Court agreed to block an exe­cu­tion just 11 times. Since 2020, when the Court shift­ed to a 6 – 3 con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty fol­low­ing the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the appoint­ment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court has grant­ed just two stays of exe­cu­tion. One, for John Henry Ramirez, chal­lenged not the execution…

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News

Sep 28, 2023

Guantanamo Bay Judge Rules 9/​11 Capital Defendant Mentally Incompetent to Stand Trial

On September 21, 2023, a mil­i­tary judge in Guantanamo Bay ruled that Ramzi Bin al Shibh, one of five defen­dants in the 9/​11 case for whom the death penal­ty is being sought, is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al. Mr. Bin al Shibh, who has been detained for 21 years, will remain in cus­tody at Guantanamo as author­i­ties attempt to treat the post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der caused when he was forced to under­go enhanced inter­ro­ga­tions” by the U.S. government.

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News

Sep 07, 2023

9/​11 Victims’ Family Members, Members of Congress Urge Biden Administration to Abandon Plea Negotiations with Guantanamo Detainees

Family mem­bers of some of the vic­tims of 9/​11 have asked the Biden Administration to aban­don cur­rent plea nego­ti­a­tions with Guantánamo detainees that would remove the pos­si­bil­i­ty of death sen­tences for the men accused of plan­ning the 9/​11 ter­ror attacks. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four co-defen­dants have been held for more than twen­ty years, first at CIA black sites where they were sub­ject to enhanced inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques” and then at Guantánamo, but none has pro­ceed­ed to tri­al. The request came after fam­i­ly mem­bers were noti­fied by the Pentagon on August…

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News

Aug 03, 2023

Jurors Sentence Robert Bowers to Death for 2018 Synagogue Shooting

On August 1, 2023, death-qual­i­fied fed­er­al jurors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed a sen­tence of death for Robert Bowers, who they had ear­li­er con­vict­ed of killing 11 Jewish wor­ship­pers at a Pittsburgh syn­a­gogue in October 2018. The jury agreed with all five aggra­vat­ing fac­tors alleged by the pros­e­cu­tion dur­ing the penal­ty phase but reject­ed defense counsel’s argu­ment that Mr. Bowers’ schiz­o­phre­nia and delu­sions meant he should not be sen­tenced to death. He will be for­mal­ly sen­tenced by the court on August 3, 2023. Family mem­bers of the vic­tims, some of whom will address…

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News

Jul 13, 2023

Jury Finds Defendant Eligible for Federal Death Penalty in Pittsburgh Synagogue Trial

The jury that found Richard Bowers guilty of all 63 fed­er­al charges he faces in con­nec­tion with the 2018 Pittsburgh syn­a­gogue shoot­ing found him eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty on July 13, 2023. Jurors delib­er­at­ed for about two hours before find­ing that the pros­e­cu­tion had met its bur­den by prov­ing that Mr. Bowers had the nec­es­sary intent to com­mit the crime and that the crime had spe­cif­ic aggra­vat­ing fac­tors for eli­gi­bil­i­ty. These fac­tors includ­ed the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of sev­er­al of the vic­tims. Defense coun­sel pre­sent­ed evi­dence of Mr. Bowers’ men­tal health…

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News

Jun 21, 2023

70 Years After Their Executions, Rosenberg Sons Still Looking to Clear Mother’s Name

Seventy years after the exe­cu­tions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, their sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol, have renewed their efforts to clear their mother’s name. Just ten and six years old when their par­ents were exe­cut­ed for fed­er­al charges of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit espi­onage, both men grew up believ­ing in their par­ents’ inno­cence. The Rosenbergs remain the only indi­vid­u­als put to death for peace­time espi­onage in American history. 

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