In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 7, as well as the federal government and military, subject to moratoriums.
Capital punishment is a legal punishment under the criminal justice system of the United States federal government. It is the most serious punishment that could be imposed under federal law. The serious crimes that warrant this punishment include treason, espionage, murder, large-scale drug trafficking, or attempted murder of a witness, juror, or court officer in certain cases.
Brian Gene Nichols is a convicted murderer known for his escape and killing spree in the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 11, 2005. Nichols was on trial for rape when he escaped custody and murdered Rowland Barnes, the judge presiding over his trial, a court reporter, a Fulton County Sheriff's deputy, and later an ICE special agent. Twenty-six hours after a large-scale manhunt was launched in the metropolitan Atlanta area, Nichols was taken into custody. The prosecution charged him with committing 54 crimes during the escape; he was found guilty on all counts on November 7, 2008, and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
Following the historic Lindbergh kidnapping, the United States Congress passed a federal kidnapping statute—known as the Federal Kidnapping Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) —which was intended to let federal authorities step in and pursue kidnappers once they had crossed state lines with their victim. The act was first proposed in December 1931 by Missouri Senator Roscoe Conkling Patterson, who pointed to several recent kidnappings in the Missouri area in calling for a federal solution. Initial resistance to Patterson's proposal was based on concerns over funding and state's rights. Consideration of the law was revived following the kidnapping of Howard Woolverton in late January 1932. Woolverton's kidnapping featured prominently in several newspaper series researched and prepared in the weeks following his abduction, and were quite possibly inspired by it. Two such projects, by Bruce Catton of the Newspaper Enterprise Association and Fred Pasley of the Daily News of New York City, were ready for publication within a day or two of the Lindbergh kidnapping. Both series, which ran in papers across North America, described kidnapping as an existential threat to American life, a singular, growing crime wave in which no one was safe.
Ann Marie Harrison was a 15-year-old American girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by two men in Raytown, Missouri. On March 22, 1989, Harrison was abducted from outside her home as she waited for the school bus. She was taken to a house where she was raped by her abductors before being stabbed to death in the trunk of a car. Her two killers: Michael Anthony Taylor and Roderick Nunley were executed for the crime by the state of Missouri via lethal injection, in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Carlton Michael Gary was an American serial killer who murdered three elderly women in Columbus, Georgia, and one in Syracuse, New York, between 1975 and 1978, though he is suspected of at least four more killings. Gary was arrested in December 1978 for an armed robbery and sentenced to 21 years in prison. He escaped from custody in 1983 and was caught a year later. Evidence was found linking him to the earlier murders and he was convicted and sentenced to death in August 1986. He was executed by lethal injection on March 15, 2018.
John Eldon Smith was convicted of the murders of Ronald and Juanita Akins. He was executed by the state of Georgia via electric chair at the age of 53. He became the first person to be executed in Georgia since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated.
Troy Anthony Davis was a man convicted of and executed for the August 19, 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant and was intervening to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot when he was murdered. During Davis's 1991 trial, seven witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail, and two others testified Davis had confessed the murder to them. There were 34 witnesses who testified for the prosecution, and six others for the defense, including Davis. Although the murder weapon was not recovered, ballistic evidence presented at trial linked bullets recovered at or near the scene to those at another shooting in which Davis was also charged. He was convicted of murder and various lesser charges, including the earlier shooting, and was sentenced to death in August 1991.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
George Krull (c.1921–1957) and Michael Krull (c.1925–1957) were brothers from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania who were executed by the United States Federal Government on August 21, 1957. They were the only people ever executed in Georgia on a federal death warrant.
Curtis Osborne was an American convicted murderer on death row in Georgia from Spalding County. He murdered Arthur Lee Jones and Linda Lisa Seaborne in 1990 to avoid paying a $400 debt. Johnny Mostiler, his court-appointed attorney, allegedly neglected to inform Osborne that the prosecutor had offered him a life sentence in exchange for a plea bargain, declaring "That little nigger deserves the death penalty." Osborne's case for clemency was championed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry Thompson, who wrote letters to the clemency board pleading for mercy. Former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell also spoke on his behalf. His execution was carried out despite these appeals.
Ronald Adrin Gray is an American serial killer and rapist whose convictions include four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and eight counts of rape. His crimes were committed when he was in the United States Army, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Paul Warner Powell was an American who was executed for the murder of his friend Stacie Reed, 16, in 1999. He also raped, strangled, and stabbed the girl's sister Kristie, 14, who survived. Following the vacation of his capital murder conviction on appeal, Powell wrote letters boasting about his crimes under the mistaken belief that he was exempt from punishment by the principle of double jeopardy. His letters were used as evidence against him in a second trial that resulted in his execution in 2010.
In Forsyth County, Georgia, in September 1912, two separate alleged attacks on white women in the Cumming area resulted in black men being accused as suspects. First, a white woman reportedly awoke to find a black man in her bedroom; then days later, a white teenage girl was beaten and raped, later dying of her injuries.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the United Arab Emirates.
Kelly Renée Gissendaner was an American woman who was executed by the U.S. state of Georgia. Gissendaner had been convicted of orchestrating the murder of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner. At the time of the murder, Gissendaner was 28, and her husband was 30. After her conviction, and until her execution, Gissendaner was the only woman on death row in Georgia.
Christopher Andre Vialva was an American man who was executed by the United States federal government for the 1999 murders of two Iowa pastors in Fort Hood, Texas. Vialva and his co-accused Brandon Bernard were both given the death penalty in 2000, while three more juveniles involved in the crime were convicted and jailed. Vialva spent 20 years on federal death row before he was executed via lethal injection on September 24, 2020, becoming the seventh person, and first Black person, to be executed by the federal government since the resumption of federal executions in July 2020.
Lezmond Charles Mitchell was a Native-American criminal who was executed by the United States federal government for the 2001 murders of a woman and her granddaughter in Arizona. The murders were committed during the course of a carjacking, and since this is qualified as a federal offense, Mitchell was tried and convicted in federal court. His case sparked controversy as the Navajo Nation tribe he was a part of openly opposed the government's plans for his execution, along with Mitchell himself maintaining he was involved in the murders but was not the mastermind behind them. Mitchell was the only Native-American on federal death row up until his execution via lethal injection on August 26, 2020.
Tracy Lee Housel was a Bermudian-American murderer and self-confessed serial killer. Convicted and later executed for murdering a woman in Norcross, Georgia during a six-week crime spree across four states, Housel was also responsible for at least two other murders and two non-fatal attacks, with him confessing shortly before his execution that he had killed 17 people in his lifetime, a claim which remains uncorroborated.
Pamela Irene Butler was a ten-year-old girl from Kansas City, Missouri who was abducted, raped, and murdered by Keith Dwayne Nelson in October 1999. Nelson abducted Butler while she was rollerblading in front of her house and took her to a remote forest. Once there, he raped her before strangling her to death with a wire. Nelson pleaded guilty to the charges pertaining to the murder of Butler and he was sentenced to death by a federal jury in November 2001. Nelson was incarcerated for nearly 21 years before he was put to death by lethal injection on August 28, 2020, therefore becoming the fifth person to be executed by the U.S. federal government after the resumption of federal executions in July 2020.
