Fool's Gold: How the Federal Death Penalty Has Perpetuated Racially Discriminatory Practices Throughout History

By The Death Penalty Information Center

It is a common assumption that the federal death penalty is reserved only for the most serious crimes against the country, like terrorism, that have a unique federal interest. But an expansion of the federal death penalty in the 1990s added more than 60 crimes that carried a potential death sentence. The cases the federal government decides to pursue are rarely “exceptional” compared to the cases tried at the state level. Federal defendants also share many of the same characteristics as state court defendants: they are often poor, traumatized and mentally impaired, and disproportionately people of color. This report documents use of the federal death penalty from its earliest beginnings through modern day. Like many state-level capital punishment systems, the federal death penalty has been used in a racially biased manner, a conclusion that the many historical examples and data in this report confirm. The federal death penalty was a tool historically used by the government to intimidate and subjugate people of color, particularly Black and Native American communities. Today, the most active death-sentencing federal jurisdictions were once the nation’s leaders of extra-judicial lynchings, a through line of connection that links the past to the present and raises serious questions about the future use of the federal death penalty.

Death Penalty Information Center, 2024. 36p.