Take this Sabbath Day
Bartlet wrestles with his conscience when the Supreme Court declines to stay the first federal execution in decades (1); now he must decide to intervene or let a convicted murderer die.
(back to top)
Federal Death Penalty (last updated May 2001) (back to top)
The federal government resumed executing people in May 2001 with Timothy McVeigh, though it had been sentencing people to death since the late 1980s. The federal government had been slow in resuming use of capital punishment after it had been declared unconstitutional as then practiced in 1972; states responded more quickly and have executed hundreds.
Before McVeigh, the last time the federal government executed someone was in May 1963.
Victor H. Feguer had kidnapped and murdered a young doctor, and because he had taken his victim from Iowa into Illinois before shooting him, and because he was in Alabama when he was finally arrested by the FBI, he came under federal jurisdiction and he unwittingly earned the dubious honor of being the last defendant to be executed by the federal government in the 20th century. He was 27 years old, and he was hung at 5:30 a.m. on February 15, 1963; it took more than nine minutes for him to die.
Feguer's execution was the only federal execution of the 1960s, and it was one of only 33 since 1930. By contrast, state governments had executed more than a hundred each year over that same time period.
Nine years later, in 1972, the United States Supreme Court held that capital punishment as then conducted was "cruel and unusual punishment" and thus unconstitutional; states responded quickly to find more structured policies, while the federal government did not bother until the 1980s.
Most violent crimes are handled at the state level, by state prosecutors. However, the federalization of crime since the 1980s has expanded the number of crimes that can be prosecuted at either the state or federal levels; it has also expanded the number of federal crimes that can be punished by death.
In 1988, the Drug Kingpin Act made the death sentence available for certain drug-related offenses, re-introducing capital punishment into the federal system. United States Attorneys (the lead federal prosecutor in each federal judicial district) could ask the Attorney General (the head of the Department of Justice) for approval to seek the death penalty; any US Attorney who did not want to use the death penalty simply would not ask. From 1988 to 1994, US Attorneys sought approval 52 times and received it 47 times; 20 cases actually went to trial.
In 1994, the Federal Death Penalty Act became law, adding 40 more federal capital crimes. Another four were added with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996.
To deal with the expanded range of capital crimes, the DOJ implemented a new "protocol" in 1995. Since then, US Attorneys must submit for review all cases where the death penalty could be sought, as well as their own recommendation as to whether it should be sought. A DOJ committee then makes a recommendation to the Attorney General, who makes the ultimate decision. From January 1995 to July 2000, US Attorneys submitted 682 cases for review, seeking authorization for the death penalty a third of time, and the Attorney General authorized the death penalty for 159 cases, 42 of which were tried by July 2000.
Of the 62 federal cases where prosecutors were authorized to seek the death penalty by July 2000, 57 were convicted of a capital offense. Of those convicted, 26 were sentenced to death; the other 31 were given other sentences. Of those 26 sentenced to death, only 19 were formally on death row as of July 2000.
Of these 19 people, 13 are black, 4 are white, 1 is Hispanic, and 1 is Asian. Six of the 19 were convicted in Texas, four in Virginia, and two in Montana.
The question of race - and to a lesser extent, geography - plays a strong role in the debate over capital punishment at the state and federal levels, or at least in its application. At the federal level, the DOJ protocol tries to eliminate racial consideration from its deliberations by barring US Attorneys from submitting any information about a defendant's race; defense counsel can and do occasionally submit such information to argue against the authorization of the death penalty. Still, critics such as Professor Rory Little have argued that race still influences the process in informal ways.
It may be worth noting this fact: of the 13 black defendants sentenced to death as of July 2000, 8 were convicted of a violent crime in which their victim was another black person.
While he did allow executions as a governor and supported capital punishment, President Bill Clinton used the question of racial disparities to delay the execution of Juan Raul Garcia, a convicted drug kingpin and three-time murderer from Texas, who was originally scheduled to be the first prisoner executed by the US government since Victor Feguer. Garcia was to be executed on August 5, 2000, but Clinton delayed the execution two times, pushing it back to June 2001.
The delay meant that Timothy McVeigh, convicted for the 168 deaths resulting from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, was the first prisoner executed by the US government when he was executed on May 5, 2001.
For more on the death penalty at the state and federal levels, go here.
Sources: The United States Department of Justice, The Federal Death Penalty System: A Statistical Survey (1988-2000), published September 12, 2000, available online. Rory K. Little, The Federal Death Penalty: History and some thoughts about the Department of Justice's role, Fordham Urban Law Journal, March 1999 (26 Fordham Urb. L. J. 347).
|
|
|
Home / Calendar
The West Wing
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The Colbert Report
Saturday Night Live
Commander in Chief
Law & Order
*
Issues
Resources
Site FAQ
Search via Google
Ripped from the Headlines?
West Wing: Santos discusses a lawsuit about intelligent design
West Wing: Electoral map as of the 10/9 episode; Santos needs to catch up big-time
SNL: The Miers nomination
South Park: Inspired by Katrina
Boston Legal: End to assault-weapons ban
Daily Show: A 2004 study found that 21 percent of young people regularly get their campaign news from comedy shows like the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live. So, some footnotes.
NOTE: All photos are copyright their respective owners.
| |
