Opinion ID: 27024
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Geographic Selectivity.

Text: 42 Finally, Jones argues that his death sentence was due, in part, to an arbitrary factor of geography. Essentially, he asserts that, although federal law applies equally throughout the states, federal death penalty cases originate only or primarily from those states, such as Texas, that also have a high propensity to pursue the death penalty under state law. According to Jones, such geographic selectivity of federal law violates his Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights. 43 His argument is meritless. Of the 19 cases on federal death row as of July 20, 2000, Jones asserts that 13 come from only three states — Texas, Virginia, and Missouri. Those states tend to be high in the rankings of states that prosecute death penalty cases under their own state law. 44 The 19 cases Jones cites were not prosecuted under state law, however. They represent independent prosecutions in various federal judicial districts, managed under the Attorney General of the United States. Jones presumably asserts that, somehow, being located in a state that imposes the death penalty under state law influences an office of the U.S. Attorney. 45 The same DOJ Report cited by Jones reports that the 19 defendants were prosecuted in 14 individual cases. Ten of those cases included single defendants and four included two or more. They were prosecuted in 12 judicial districts in 10 states. As we have already observed, for the period 1995 — 2000, U.S. Attorneys in 49 of 94 federal districts recommended death penalty prosecutions. That is much broader than the districts limited to the states that Jones has singled out. Jones has presented nothing to show that any of those states, and Texas in particular, have had any influence on their resident U.S. Attorney's offices as to whether to prosecute the death penalty or to refrain from such prosecution. 46 We deny Jones's application for a COA on this issue. 47