EXECUTION LAW UNTESTED BEFORE SUPREME COURT.Byline: Sandy Shore Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Timothy McVeigh became the 14th person sentenced to die under the relatively new federal death-penalty law, but it could be years before the sentence is carried out - if ever. The constitutionality of the law, which was broadened in 1994, has yet to be tested in the U.S. Supreme Court. ``It's a death-penalty case, and the courts will give it close scrutiny,'' said Laurie Levenson, a dean of the Loyola University Law School in Los Angeles. A jury sentenced McVeigh to death Friday in the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing See Terrorism "The Oklahoma City Bombing" (Sidebar); Venue "Venue and the Oklahoma City Bombing Case" (Sidebar). , which killed 168 people. Federal Bureau of Prisons Noun 1. Federal Bureau of Prisons - the law enforcement agency of the Justice Department that operates a nationwide system of prisons and detention facilities to incarcerate inmates sentenced to imprisonment for federal crimes BoP officials won't comment specifically about McVeigh but say inmates sentenced to death typically are held at a high- or maximum-security prison near the court where their appeals are handled. That means McVeigh probably will remain in Colorado. The federal government has not executed anyone since 1963, when murderer Victor Feguer was hanged at the Iowa State Penitentiary The Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP) is a maximum security prison for men located in the Lee County, Iowa community of Fort Madison. In Iowa the prison is known colloquially as Fort Madison and is usually referred to as such by people in the state. . The federal death-penalty statute grew out of a 1972 Supreme Court ruling that declared all such state laws unconstitutional on the grounds that they were capriciously and arbitrarily applied. In 1988 - 12 years after the high court allowed capital punishment capital punishment, imposition of a penalty of death by the state. History Capital punishment was widely applied in ancient times; it can be found (c.1750 B.C.) in the Code of Hammurabi. to resume - the federal government passed a law allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty in major drug-trafficking cases. In 1994, Congress expanded the law to include some 60 other crimes, including use of a weapon of mass destruction weapon of mass destruction (WMD) Weapon with the capacity to inflict death and destruction indiscriminately and on a massive scale. The term has been in currency since at least 1937, when it was used to describe massed formations of bomber aircraft. and murder of a federal law enforcement officer. Eight federal law officers died in the Oklahoma City bombing. CAPTION(S): Photo |
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