36 States with Death Penalty / 41 Federal Capital Crimes
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in its Capital Punishment Project website section titled "Legislative Developments" (accessed Mar. 19, 2009), wrote:
"The death penalty in the United States is primarily governed by state law, not federal law. Although there is a federal death penalty, more than 98 percent of the men and women on death rows across the United States are incarcerated as a result of state laws. Therefore, the legislation that most directly affects who is sentenced to death in the United States, what appellate processes they have, and how and when they are executed, is legislation at the state level."
Civil rights conspiracy resulting in death Civil rights deprivation based on color resulting in death Civil rights infringement on federally permitted activities resulting in death Religious rights infringement resulting in death
Death resulting from offenses involving transportation of explosives, destruction of government property, or destruction of property related to foreign or interstate commerce
III. Why are federal and state death penalty standards different?
Michael C. Dorf, JD, Professor of Law at Columbia University, in a Feb. 19, 2003 FindLaw.com article from its "Legal Commentary" section titled "The Misguided Quest for Geographic Uniformity in Capital Punishment: Why It Conflicts With Constitutional Jury Trial Rights," wrote:
"In two separate places--Article III, which concerns the federal judiciary, and the Sixth Amendment, which concerns federal criminal trials--the Constitution guarantees that federal criminal trials shall be conducted in front of a jury, and in the state where the crime is alleged to have occurred. [J]uries were in the eighteenth century, and remain today, the voice of the community --a local voice that is distinct from the aggregate of national public opinion. In guaranteeing an in-state venue for criminal trials, the Framers expressed the judgment that criminal justice was, to some extent, properly governed by local or regional, not national, standards.
[U]nder our Constitution, federal criminal jury trials are meant to differ state by state to some extent. The impulse to insist on a nationally uniform capital charging policy may spring from a laudable concern for equal justice. But the constitutional right to jury trial in the state where the crime is committed should act as a strong counterweight to that impulse."
The US Constitution, in Article III, Section 2, Clause 3, states:
"The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed."
The Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution states:
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
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