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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