Efforts are underway to end the execution of federal prisoners.
The bill would immediately halt federal executions and would prohibit the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law. There have been no federal executions for over 36 years. However, in 1988 and 1994, Congress passed laws that expanded the number of federal offenses punishable by execution. These laws have increased the number of federal prisoners who have been sentenced to death in recent years. Twenty-one prisoners now wait in the facility in Terre Haute, IN, which, in July 1999, began housing federal death row inmates.