Talk:Capital punishment by the United States federal government

Untitled
I can't find a list of military executions online. Does anyone know of one? Rmhermen 01:48, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)

I'd rather see lists of persons executed than of "individuals" executed. "Individual" sounds cutesy, like something an 8th-grade social studies teacher would say in order to prove he knows bigger words than "person". Michael Hardy 23:23, 26 Dec 2003 (UTC) (originally posted on Talk:Seth Ilys)

Really? I don't have that sense at all. I think, to many people, "peoples" still sounds rather contrived (we run into the whole person/persons/people/peoples plural debacle, and that, I think, could be confusing :). The trouble, of course, is coming up with a NPOV noun to describe executed... umm... folks. If there was one, I'd switch to it in a heartbeat. -Seth Ilys 00:27, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I am removing the entry in regards to Williams, as he was executed by the State of California, not the United States Government. Jon Cates 22:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Since this article refers only to federal executions, I think this should be made clear in the title. Many people, especially outside the US, would not recognize a distinction between "by the United States" and "in the United States". The state governments, after all, are a part of the US. If a reader does not pay attention to the opening paragraph, he/she may conclude that only 3 people have been executed in the US since 1963. I propose changing the title to List of individuals executed by the federal government of the United States. Mtford 10:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The States are not the United States. We are here to serve our readers; we are not the Simple Wikipedia. The present title is correct, short, linkable, and clearly explained. Oppose; I might be persuaded to support List of individuals executed by the United States Government. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Where is the confusion? The meaning of 'the United States' is clear and it does not mean individual states.  If this is not clear, we have a major renaming task ahead of us! Vegaswikian 16:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The confusion arises because many readers will think of the United States as a place in North America, rather than the name of one of the 51 civilian jurisdictions within that country. At least that's how I initially read the title as a non-American. I do understand that the United States (singular proper noun) is not equivalent to the fifty states (which confusingly happen to be "united") - and I know that the federal government has its own jurisdiction. Nonetheless, many competent native English speakers are likely to be misled, because they are used to thinking of the US as a country rather than a jurisdiction. Knowledge of the English language does not imply detailed knowledge of the United States, so I'm not arguing for the style of the Simple Wikipedia. How would a typical well-educated American reader interpret the title List of individuals executed by Tajikstan (or indeed Canada)? Or suppose you heard on the evening news that a certain number of people had been "executed by Iran" in the past 40 years; would you feel deceived if you later discovered that the number of people "executed lawfully in Iran" over the same period was 100 times greater? That example is probably not true; however, based on my experience of the UK (which has no "federal" courts), I would instinctively assume that Tajikstan or Iran refers to the entire political structure governing a geographical area on the map, which may include one or more jurisdictions. The structure which governs the space between Canada and Mexico (+AK,HI), known geographically as the United States, includes 51 such jurisdictions. Many readers of this article will be interested in the worldwide implementation of the death penalty, so a good way to "serve our readers" would be to protect them from misleading statistics, and to expect some level of ignorance about the US judiciary. The current text is clear enough; the title is "minimally precise", but could definitely be clearer. I do not see the same potential for confusion with most other United States articles, so renaming this one would not be the thin end of a large wedge. Mtford 20:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems it could be clearer, I've done the move. See this as a bold action. Revert the move if need be.  Good luck to all. Best regards, Navou 06:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No offense, but I've moved it back to allow the RM to run its course. Dekimasu よ! 11:02, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * None taken. That is why there is a revert link, no big deal. Navou 17:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I have just removed the link "executed by the United States" from the first sentence of the article, which was adding further confusion. It pointed to an article about capital punishment in the United States (i.e. by all jurisdictions), and not by the United States. Whoever put the inconsistent link there (which was nothing to do with me!) was presumably confused by the same issue that I'm trying to highlight. Whatever we decide about the title, the first sentence should probably use the same wording as the title. Mtford 14:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. I should perhaps add that I did misinterpret the title as being those persons killed by any government in the United States, whether it be state or federal, but perhaps that's just a sign of my ignorance in matters of American politics. --Stemonitis 13:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Source?
What is the source for the list of people executed? I found this: http://www.bop.gov/about/history/execchart.jsp from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It is pretty different than what is listed on this page. I am updating the list to include the BOP members. If there isn't a source for the additional people, they should be removed. Amsibert (talk) 15:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't get it...?
It says "These are the twelve offenses punishable by death or another punishment in the United States Code:"...then it goes on to list obviously more than twelve offenses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.74.57 (talk) 00:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Method
The article says that any executions carried out by the federal government are required by law to use whatever method is used by the state in which the crime was committed. But what about executions for a federal crime committed in a state that has no death penalty? What method would be used then? If we have information about that, it really needs to be in the article, because that seems fairly significant. 75.76.213.106 (talk) 02:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Unsupported content
I removed the unsupported content, "Federal law requires that the method of execution be by lethal injection.", as the inline cite does not corroborate this information and there is no reference. Otr500 (talk) 13:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Presidential assassins section
I have several objections to the "Presidential assassins" section and believe that it should be removed entirely. Organizationally, it makes no sense to have only one section for one class of criminals, but not others. The article isn't organized that way and the information can be included elsewhere. Granted, the subject matter is more high profile, but considering the scope of the article, I see no reason to give it the prominence it currently has. More importantly, all but one of the assassins mentioned in the section was given a civilian trial; the rest were tried by the military. Discussion of military-imposed capital punishment is excluded from the rest of the article for the simple reason that capital punishment by the military is dealt with in a separate article.

Furthermore, I think it is obvious that the only reason that presidential assassins are mentioned in the article is because of the false notion that "the assassinations of Lincoln and Garfield were prosecuted by the federal government because they took place in the District of Columbia." That is simply not true since the Lincoln conspirators were tried in a military commission, not in the federal district court in DC. – Zntrip 03:41, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * And I disagree (obviously). The Lincoln conspirators were tried by the federal government - as are most other military trials. It is just the the military material is so large it is spun off to a subpage with only a summary left here. There is an expectation that Presidential assassins would be discussed here because the issue is important and U.S. federal jurisdiction is the current law (and not the ad hoc military procedure that the Supreme Court outlawed a year after the Lincoln assassins trial). "all but one of the assassins mentioned in the section was given a civilian trial" is another way of saying there were only ever two such trials and one was military. A discussion of the reasons why is appropriate here. There is also the German soldiers military trial which is mentioned here (and not on the military page). Rmhermen (talk) 15:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Further research shows that we have no place for state-ordered military executions (state National Guards on non-federal duty). I don't know whether any have ever occurred - and currently most states limit military trials to smaller crimes and try major felonies in normal state courts. Rmhermen (talk) 15:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The way I see it is that discussion of capital punishment imposed by the federal government is bifurcated: capital punishment imposed by Article III tribunals is discussed on this page and capital punishment imposed by the military is discussed on another page. While individual states have court martial procedures, the reality is that there are no capital cases, so I don't think that topic warrants discussion at this point. With regard to the Nazi saboteurs case, it obviously should not be included in the list since the heading of that section is "Earlier non-military executions".


 * Additionally, my point is not that the information regarding presidential assassins is totally irrelevant. My point is that it is given undue prominence and that it is inconsistent with the overall structure of the article. How would you feel about adding the information as a footnote or parenthetical after the mention of the crime of killing the president under the "Capital offenses" section? – Zntrip 19:29, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Profiles of federal death row inmates initially held by Texas
The following federal prisoners were housed by Texas before USP Terre Haute's death row block opened in 1999. The following have TDCJ profiles:
 * Louis Jones, Jr. (see the article about his case)
 * Orlando Cordia Hall

I have not yet found the profiles of the following federal inmates who were held by the TDCJ: WhisperToMe (talk) 00:31, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Juan Raul Garza
 * David Ronald Chandler (convicted in Alabama)
 * See "First Death Under Drug Law Is Favored by Alabama Jury." Associated Press at The New York Times. April 4, 1991.
 * "U.S. v. CHANDLER."
 * Bill Clinton later commuted his sentence to life in prison: "Clinton Commutes First Federal Death Row Inmate's Sentence to Life in Prison." Democracy Now. January 23, 2001.
 * Reeves, Jay. "Murder victim's family says Clinton action is the biggest insult of all." Associated Press at the Daily News (Bowling Green, Kentucky). Sunday February 18, 2001. page 6-C.
 * He was moved to USP Leavenworth "McVeigh's Comments Published in Buffalo Paper." CNN. June 10, 2001.
 * "Inmate once condemned to die talks about death row." CNN. June 19, 2001.

List of crimes
Under Capital offenses, I notice that the list does not match what is cited in the lone U.S. Code citation at the top of the section ("Title 18 Chapter 228, U.S. Code"). Firstly, what is the source of this information? Secondly, do we need this list here? (Is it a thorough and exception-free list, or is there additional context needed?) Also, User:2603:7080:7943:F800:E874:BC99:97FF:FA1D added some more items recently, and I don't see the source. If they read this message, would they mind explaining their rationale? TheFeds 09:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Hearing no comments in support of this list, I have removed it. TheFeds  10:13, 23 September 2021 (UTC)