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handle is hein.crs/crsajgb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Order Code RS22433
Updated December 11, 2006
The Death Penalty: An Abridged Look at
Capital Punishment Legislation in the 109th
Congress
Charles Doyle
Senior Specialist
American Law Division
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
109' 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.

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