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.
For more information regarding the federal executions scheduled in 2020 and 2021, see our page Federal Execution Updates. See DPIC Statement on Federal Executions.
Overview
The federal death penalty applies in all 50 states and U.S. territories but is used relatively rarely. About 55 prisoners are on the federal death row, most of whom are imprisoned in Terre Haute, Indiana. Three federal executions have been carried out in the modern era, all by lethal injection, with the last occurring in 2003.
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.
Sep 03, 2020
DPIC Analysis: Federal Execution Spree Out of Step with U.S. Death Penalty Trends and Attitudes
At a time in which the United States as a whole and individual states and counties have continued their long-term movement away from the death penalty, the federal government’s current execution spree has established it as an outlier jurisdiction …
Read MoreNews & Developments
Feb 15, 2021
Associated Press Finds Federal Executions Were Likely COVID Superspreader Events
Inadequate testing, resistance to contact tracing, and poor social distancing practices likely made the thirteen federal executions in 2020 – 2021 COVID-19 superspreader events, the Associated Press has concluded. In the ten days af…
Feb 09, 2021
More Than 80 Civil Rights and Advocacy Organizations Urge President Biden to End Federal Executions
A coalition of 82 civil rights and advocacy organizations have called on President Joe Biden to honor his campaign promise of “ensuring equality, equity, and justice in our criminal legal system” by taking executive action to end …
Feb 03, 2021
Records Disclose Taxpayers Picked Up a Nearly Million Dollar Price Tag for Each Federal Execution
The Federal Bureau of Prisons spent nearly $4.7 million dollars on the first five executions carried out by the Trump administration in July and August 2020, according to redacted government financial records recently obtained by …
Feb 01, 2021
Under Court Order Requiring Protective Measures, Federal Bureau of Prisons Takes No Action After Media Witnesses to Executions Contract COVID-19
Despite being under federal court order to undertake protective measures against the spread of COVID-19, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) took no action after being alerted that two reporters who had been media witnesses to the…
Jan 29, 2021
Legitimacy and the Rule of Law: Supreme Court’s Institutional Standing Damaged by Rulings During Federal Execution Spree
From July 14, 2020 through January 16, 2021, the federal government executed thirteen prisoners. It was the most consecutive executions by a single jurisdiction since the U.S. death penalty resumed in the 1970s and the longest period of time in wh…
Jan 28, 2021
Three Cases Illustrate Federal Death Penalty in Flux as Biden Team Takes Reins at DOJ
Developments in three federal capital cases at the transition between presidential administrations illustrate the choices that the new Biden Department of Justice will face in formulating its policy on the federal death penalty. T…
Jan 25, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of January 18, 2021
NEWS (1/22/21) — Texas: The Kaufman County District Attorney’s office has conceded that Texas death-row prisoner Charles Brownlow is intellectually disabled and cannot be resentenced to death. The county prosecutors’ decision come…
Jan 20, 2021
Democratic Legislators Introduce Death Penalty Repeal Bills, Urge President Biden to Commute Federal Death Sentences
Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate have called on incoming President Joe Biden (pictured) to take quick action on his campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty. Legislators introduced three bills to abolish the…
Jan 18, 2021
'This is Not Justice'—Federal Execution Spree Ends with Planned Execution of African-American on Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday
An historically aberrant six-month federal execution spree came to a close after midnight on January 16, 2021 when an African-American man who was scheduled to die on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was put to death…
Jan 14, 2021
Federal Government Executes Corey Johnson, Who was Likely Intellectually Disabled, Without Any Judicial Review of His Eligibility for the Death Penalty
For the second time in less than five weeks, the federal government has executed a death-row prisoner who likely was intellectually disabled, without affording him judicial review to determine his eligibility for the death penalty. Corey J…
