In 1994, when Congress made the procedural adjustments necessary to revive the death penalty as a sentencing option for other federal capital offenses, it replaced the air piracy procedures with those of the new regime. 3060 contain comparable provisions. Habeas Corpus in State Capital Cases

Federal law provides expedited habeas corpus procedures for state death row inmates in those states that qualify for application of the procedures and have opted to take advantage of them. 1279 , and H.R. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act adds 18 U.S.C. H.R. Two other port securityÂ bills would have suggested similar new death penalty offenses, H.R. 4472 , H.R. One of the proposed offenses would have proscribed the use of interstate facilities with the intent to commit multiple murders and would have been a capital offense where death results. The other, modeled after the provision that condemns the use of a firearm during or in relation to a crime of violence or a drug offense, would have outlawed crimes of violence committed during or in relation to a drug trafficking offense and makes the offense punishable by death if a death results. A few other bills would have made it a federal capital offense to kill a police officer under various circumstances. 1751 and H.R. Other proposed new federal capital offenses would have included (1) agroterrorism when death results, proposed 18 U.S.C. (attacks on mass transit) into a new 18 U.S.C. 3132 (same); (4) H.R. 2245 to make murder a federal capital offense when committed in the course of a wider range of federal child sexual abuse offenses. The Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause precludes imposing the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman by an individual already under a sentence of life imprisonment at the time of the rape; it precludes imposition of the deathÂ penalty even in the case of murder unless the defendant at least acted intentionally or actedÂ with reckless indifference to human life while participating in a felony involving a murder; and since the Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia , it has never been called upon to approve, and consequently has never approved, imposition of the death penalty for a crime that did not involve murder. Moratorium

H.R. 4923 / S. 122 would have repealed federal death penalty provisions and barred imposition or execution of any capital sentence for violation of federal law.
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 th 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 109 th Congress , by [author name scrubbed] (pdf), without the footnotes, appendices, or most of the citations to authority found in the longer report.