State & Federal Info
Federal Death Penalty
The federal government can seek death sentences for a limited set of crimes, but federal executions are much rarer than state executions.
State & Federal Info
The federal government can seek death sentences for a limited set of crimes, but federal executions are much rarer than state executions.
The federal death penalty applies in all 50 states and U.S. territories but is used relatively rarely. About 45 prisoners are 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.
Jul 06, 2021
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 Garl…
Read MoreFederal Death Penalty
Feb 02, 2023
Sayfullo Saipov (pictured) was found guilty in federal court on January 26, 2023 of killing eight people on a New York City bike path in 2017 by driving a truck into a crowd of people. He will now likely be the first person to face a federal capit…
Human Rights
Jan 19, 2023
A Russian national on the U.S. federal death row has filed a civil rights lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal government’s use of automatic and prolonged solitary confinement to house individuals sentenced to death. T…
Race
Sep 07, 2022
As federal prosecutors consider what punishment to seek against the accused gunman in the May 2022 mass shooting at a Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, survivors and family members of victims of the shooting are concerned that pursuing…
Human Rights
Jul 11, 2022
A new report by the human rights organization Amnesty International urges President Joe Biden to act upon his campaign pledge to work to abolish the death penalty by exercising his constitutional authority to comm…
Federal Death Penalty
Apr 04, 2022
In the March 2022 episode of Discussions With DPIC, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Senior Lecturer Meredith Rountree speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about her study of th…
Federal Death Penalty
Mar 18, 2022
Military prosecutors and defense attorneys are reportedly discussing plea deals that could take the death penalty off the table in the Guantánamo military commission cases of five men accused of involvement in the September 11, 2001 terrorist atta…
Victims' Families
Mar 07, 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a federal appeals court decision that had reversed the death sentences imposed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people …
Innocence
Jan 07, 2022
As 2021 came to a close, editorial writers in four death penalty states called for legislative and executive action to end capital punishment or further limit its use. Editorial boards for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Lethal Injection
Dec 21, 2021
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland seeking information on the Department of Justice’s death penalty practices and policies, including whether DOJ…
Intellectual Disability
Nov 04, 2021
In a ruling that provoked a sharp dissent from the Court’s liberal minority, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the case of a death-row prisoner whom prosecutors and defense lawyers agree is not eligible for the death penalty as a resul…