The Death Penalty: An Abridged Look at Capital Punishment Legislation in the 109th Congress (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Dec. 11, 2006 |
| Report Number |
RS22433 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Charles Doyle, American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
The USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act (Reauthorization Act), P.L. 109-177, 120 Stat. 192 (2006) contains a number of death penalty related provisions. Some create new federal capital offenses making certain death-resulting maritime offenses punishable by death. Some add the death penalty as a sentencing option in the case of pre-existing federal crimes such those outlawing attacks on mass transit. Some make procedural alterations such as those governing federal habeas corpus provisions for state death row petitioners. Other proposals offered during the 109th Congress followed the same pattern: some new crimes; some new penalties for old crimes; and some procedural adjustments. Other than the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, P.L. 109-248, 120 Stat. 587 (2006), none of the other proposals were enacted, although one House or the other approved several. Among these, H.R. 1279 would have amended the venue provision for capital cases and made it a federal capital offense to use the facilities of interstate commerce to commit multiple murders and another to commit murder during and in relation to a drug trafficking offense. As would have H.R. 4472. H.R. 1751 and H.R. 4472 would have made it a federal capital offense to murder a federally funded public safety officer. H.R. 3132 would have created special expedited habeas review of state child murder cases. And S. 2611 would have made murder committed during the course of certain federal offenses a capital offense.
Of the capital proposals pending at adjournment, H.R. 4923 and S. 122 would have abolished the death penalty as a federal sentencing alternative and H.R. 379 would have imposed a moratorium barring the states from imposing or carrying out the death penalty.
This is an abridged version of CRS Report RL33395, The Death Penalty: Capital Punishment Legislation in the 109th Congress, by Charles Doyle, without the footnotes, appendices, or most of the citations to authority found in the longer report.
