Federal death row holds the small number of people sentenced to die under federal law and awaiting execution in federal custody. After President Biden commuted 37 of the 40 federal death sentences to life without release in December 2024, only three people remain: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Dylann Roof, and Robert Bowers. Male federal death row inmates are held in the Special Confinement Unit at USP Terre Haute in Indiana; women under a federal death sentence are held at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Three People Currently Under a Federal Death Sentence
The three men Biden excluded from his December 2024 commutations had each been convicted of terrorism or hate-crime mass shootings: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Dylann Roof for the 2015 Charleston church shooting, and Robert Bowers for the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.1The White House. Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety
The other 37 people previously on federal death row had their sentences commuted to life in prison without the possibility of release. They are no longer death row inmates, though they remain in federal custody for the rest of their lives.
What Puts Someone on Federal Death Row
The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994, codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 3591–3599, defines the crimes that can result in a federal death sentence.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC Chapter 228 – Death Sentence Treason and espionage qualify on their own. For most other federal crimes, the death penalty is available only when someone was intentionally killed or when the defendant’s conduct created a grave risk of death that directly caused a death. That covers terrorism, kidnapping, carjacking, certain firearms offenses, sexual exploitation of children, and the murder of federal judges, law enforcement officers, or other government officials when the crime results in a fatality.
Large-scale drug trafficking can trigger a death sentence even without a killing, but the threshold is high. The defendant must have been running a continuing criminal enterprise involving at least twice the drug quantities or gross receipts that normally define such an enterprise under federal drug law.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC Chapter 228 – Death Sentence
How the Justice Department Authorizes a Capital Prosecution
A local federal prosecutor cannot decide on their own to pursue death. Every federal capital case runs through a centralized review, and only the Attorney General can authorize seeking a death sentence.
When a U.S. Attorney’s Office identifies a case that could qualify, the materials go to the Capital Review Committee, made up of experienced prosecutors drawn from the Deputy Attorney General’s office, the Criminal Division, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices nationwide. The Committee meets with the prosecution team and with defense counsel before making its recommendation. If the Committee disagrees with the local prosecutor, the local office can respond in writing before the Deputy Attorney General passes the matter up to the Attorney General for a final, binding decision. Claims of racial bias in the federal administration of the death penalty can be raised as part of this review.3U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Manual 9-10.000 – Capital Crimes
This is one of the sharper differences from state practice. In most states, an elected district attorney makes the call. At the federal level, that power sits with one person in Washington.
How the Sentence Is Imposed
Federal capital trials run in two stages. The first determines guilt. The second, held only after a guilty verdict on a death-eligible charge, determines whether the defendant will actually be sentenced to death.
In the sentencing phase, the prosecution presents aggravating factors. The statute lists specific ones, including that the crime was committed in an especially cruel manner, that the defendant had prior violent felony convictions, that the killing was motivated by financial gain, or that it involved substantial planning. Evidence about the harm the crime caused the victim’s family is also permitted.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3592 – Mitigating and Aggravating Factors to Be Considered in Determining Whether a Sentence of Death Is Justified
The defense presents mitigating factors, and these are deliberately broad. They can include impaired mental capacity, severe emotional disturbance, a history of abuse, a minor role in the offense, no prior criminal record, or any other aspect of the defendant’s background or character. The jury must consider anything the defense offers, including factors not listed in the statute.
A death sentence requires a unanimous jury vote. Every juror must agree that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating ones and that death is the appropriate punishment. If even one juror disagrees, the court imposes life in prison without release or a lesser sentence. Any individual finding on an aggravating factor must also be unanimous.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3593 – Special Hearing to Determine Whether a Sentence of Death Is Justified
Anyone indicted on a capital charge who cannot afford counsel gets two court-appointed attorneys, and at least one must have substantial experience in death penalty cases. That right attaches when the capital charge is filed, before the government has even formally announced it will seek death.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3005 – Counsel and Witnesses in Capital Cases
Who Cannot Be Executed
Federal law and Supreme Court precedent place firm limits on who the government can put to death, regardless of the crime.
- People with intellectual disabilities. The statute prohibits it, and the Supreme Court has ruled that rigid IQ cutoffs cannot decide the question. Courts must apply current medical diagnostic standards, including evidence of limitations in everyday functioning.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3596 – Implementation of a Sentence of Death
- People whose mental disability prevents them from understanding what the death penalty is or why it was imposed.
- People who committed their crime before turning 18. The Supreme Court held in Roper v. Simmons that executing anyone for a crime committed as a juvenile violates the Eighth Amendment.8Justia Law. Roper v Simmons, 543 US 551 (2005)
- Pregnant women. A death sentence cannot be carried out while a woman is pregnant.
Where Federal Death Row Inmates Are Held
Men are held in the Special Confinement Unit at USP Terre Haute in Indiana, the same high-security facility that contains the federal execution chamber. Women are held at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.
Conditions in the Special Confinement Unit are significantly more restrictive than general population housing, with limited movement, heightened surveillance, and controlled contact with other prisoners. Time on the row is long. Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 2023 showed 41 people on federal death row before the mass commutations later that year, and more than half of all death-sentenced prisoners nationwide had been waiting more than eighteen years.9Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables
Appeals and Post-Conviction Review
A federal death sentence triggers a multi-layered review process that can take a decade or longer to work through.
Direct Appeal
Every death sentence automatically goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the circuit where the trial took place. The appeal is limited to issues raised at trial or sentencing, including improper jury instructions, wrongly admitted evidence, or errors in applying the aggravating and mitigating factor analysis. The appellate court can affirm, reverse, or send the case back for a new trial or sentencing hearing.
Motion Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255
After direct appeal, a defendant can file a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 asking the trial court to vacate, set aside, or correct the sentence. This is where constitutional claims that could not have been raised on direct appeal get heard, including ineffective assistance of counsel and newly discovered evidence. There is a one-year deadline, running from the date the conviction becomes final, the date a government-created obstacle to filing is removed, the date the Supreme Court recognizes a new retroactive constitutional right, or the date newly discovered facts could have been found with reasonable diligence.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2255 – Federal Custody; Remedies on Motion Attacking Sentence
Second or Successive Petitions
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 sharply limits second rounds of post-conviction challenges. A second petition is barred unless the defendant shows it relies on a new rule of constitutional law that the Supreme Court has made retroactive, or that newly discovered facts would establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable jury would have convicted. Before a second petition can reach the trial court, a three-judge panel of the court of appeals must authorize the filing within 30 days.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2244 – Finality of Determination
Presidential Clemency
The Constitution gives the President the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States. That power is absolute and unreviewable by any court, and it can be used to commute a death sentence to life imprisonment or grant a full pardon. Biden’s December 2024 commutations, moving 37 people off federal death row in a single action, are the most significant recent exercise of the authority.12Congress.gov. Article II Section 2
How a Federal Execution Is Carried Out
Once appeals are exhausted, the Attorney General transfers the condemned person to the custody of a United States Marshal, who supervises the execution. Federal regulations specify lethal injection in a quantity sufficient to cause death, with the substances determined by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.13eCFR. 28 CFR 26.3 – Date, Time, Place, and Manner of Execution
The regulation contains an alternative. A federal execution can follow the method prescribed by the law of the state where the sentence was imposed, or by a state designated by the court if the sentencing state has no execution method. In practice, all recent federal executions have been carried out in the execution chamber at USP Terre Haute, regardless of where the underlying crime occurred.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3596 – Implementation of a Sentence of Death
Emergency stay applications can reach the Supreme Court in the final hours before a scheduled execution. A single Justice can temporarily halt an execution pending review by the full Court, but five of the nine Justices must vote to grant a stay.14U.S. Courts. Supreme Court Procedures
Witnesses, including the victim’s family, the defendant’s legal team, and media representatives, observe from designated viewing areas. The Warden of the facility supervises the administration of the lethal substances, and once a physician certifies death, the Bureau of Prisons’ obligations regarding that individual conclude.
Where Federal Executions Stand Now
The federal government carried out no executions between 2003 and 2020. Thirteen federal inmates were then executed between July 2020 and January 2021 at USP Terre Haute. When Biden took office in 2021, his Department of Justice imposed a moratorium, and no federal inmates were put to death during his presidency.
In January 2025, the new administration issued an executive order reversing course. It directs the Attorney General to seek the death penalty for all federal crimes serious enough to warrant it and specifically singles out two categories for mandatory pursuit: the murder of a law enforcement officer and capital crimes committed by noncitizens unlawfully present in the United States. The order also instructs the Attorney General to help states obtain lethal injection drugs and to seek the reversal of Supreme Court precedents that limit capital punishment.1The White House. Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety Which specific rulings that reversal effort targets has not been spelled out.