Disposition of Cases Since Reinstatement of Federal Death Penalty in 1988

The infor­ma­tion below is quot­ed in full from the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project

As of January 21, 2021

Since 1988, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has tak­en to tri­al a total of 208 fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es involv­ing 304 defen­dants in 238 tri­als. These 304 defen­dants were culled from a larg­er pool of 538 (FN1) against whom the Attorney General had autho­rized the gov­ern­ment to seek the death penal­ty. Excluding 35 defen­dants who are await­ing or cur­rent­ly on tri­al on cap­i­tal charges, 249 of the remain­ing 503 defen­dants avoid­ed tri­al by nego­ti­at­ed plea, when the gov­ern­ment dropped its request for the death penal­ty with­out a plea agree­ment, dis­missed charges entire­ly or the judge barred the death penal­ty. Fourteen were found not guilty of the cap­i­tal charge. Two oth­ers were declared inno­cent by the gov­ern­ment. Charges were dis­missed against a third when grave ques­tions were raised about his guilt. There have been six­teen exe­cu­tions. Three defen­dants died before tri­al. Two were found incom­pe­tent after autho­riza­tion. Two death row inmates were grant­ed clemen­cy. In cas­es where juries actu­al­ly reached the point of choos­ing between life and death, they imposed 153 (64%) life sen­tences and 86 (36%) death sen­tences. Of these 86 sen­tences of death, 4 defen­dants received a death sen­tence twice. Three addi­tion­al defen­dants received death ver­dicts, but new tri­als were grant­ed before sen­tenc­ing and life sen­tences result­ed — one by jury, anoth­er by plea, a third by judge. An addi­tion­al defen­dant received a life sen­tence, but the gov­ern­ment filed for and received a new tri­al. The dis­po­si­tions of these cas­es is summarized below:

The dis­po­si­tions of these cas­es is summarized below:

Of the total of 538 (FN2) defen­dants against whom the Attorney General has autho­rized the gov­ern­ment to request the death penal­ty, 148 have been white, or 27%, 100 Hispanic, or 19%, 28 Asian/​Indian/​Pacific Islander/​Native American/​Filipino/​Middle Eastern, or 5% and 262 African-Americans, or 49%. 390 of the 538, or 72%, of the defen­dants approved for a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion by the Attorney Generals to date are mem­bers of minor­i­ty groups. Twenty-sev­en of the forty-sev­en defen­dants now on fed­er­al death row under active death sen­tences, or 57%, are non-white. Twenty-nine, or 62%, of fed­er­al death row were con­vict­ed of killing whites. Only 197, or 37% of the 538 (FN3) autho­rized killed whites. 103, or 19% of the 538 killed a white female. Fifteen of the forty-sev­en defen­dants cur­rent­ly on death row, or 32%, killed a white female. Of the six­teen exe­cu­tions, ten of six­teen (63%) defen­dants killed a white female and fif­teen of six­teen (94%) defen­dants killed a female.

FN 1: There are three defen­dants who received a notice of intent from two dif­fer­ent indict­ments: Fackrel (ED TX) has two sep­a­rate indict­ments and crimes, both in the ED TX. Knorr and McIntosh (SD IL) (CD CA) have two sep­a­rate indict­ments, for the same crime. For pur­pos­es of these sta­tis­tics, they are only count­ed one time.

FN 2: This totals 538 as Fackrel (ED TX) is reflect­ed both as his death sen­tence (one case) and await­ing tri­al (anoth­er case).

FN 3: One defen­dant had no victims.