ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the prosecution of capital cases by the federal government. It focuses on the application of the death penalty by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to cases involving violations of certain federal criminal laws. The use of the federal death penalty dates to the earliest years of the United States. The first execution took place three years after the formation of the federal government under the United States Constitution, when Thomas Bird was hanged for murder after beating a shipmate to death. Since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, several additional statutes have shaped the modern federal death penalty in a variety of ways. In addition to the 1988 Act, these include the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994; the Racial Justice Act of 1994; the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996; and the Innocence Protection Act of 2004.
