A federal jury chose a sentence of life without parole for Tyrone Williams (pictured) for his role in a human-smuggling operation that left 19 illegal immigrants dead. In December, the same jurors convicted Williams of 58 smuggling counts, 20 of which carried the death penalty as a sentencing option. Williams, who abandoned about 100 immigrants sealed in his truck’s refrigeration trailor after determining that it had become a death trap in 2003, is the third person to face federal capital charges in the Southern District of Texas. Since 1993, U.S. Attorneys from the region have won two death sentences, one against marijuana kingpin Juan Raul Garza for killing three drug traffickers and one against Alfred Bourgeois for the shaking death of his 2‑year-old daughter. Garza was executed in 2001.

(Houston Chronicle, January 18, 2007). See Arbitrariness, Federal Death Penalty, and Life Without Parole.

The size of the federal death row has almost tripled since 2000, while the number of prisoners on state death rows has declined. Federal capital cases that have gone to trial have resulted in death sentences in about one-third of the cases since the federal death penalty was reinstated.

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