The Federal Death Penalty

Talking Feds

Harry Litman

Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2019

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Feds take up the most sober, and one of the most controversial, topics in the federal criminal justice system -- the federal death penalty. There are currently 62 offenders on federal death row, a small fraction of the numbers in the state system, and the federal government has executed only 3 federal prisoners since 1963. So why do we have, and why do we need, a federal death penalty? Given the different approaches to capital punishment in the states, should the federal system work to ensure uniformity among all federal capital defendants or should it reflect the variations in local communities? As a practical matter, how does the decision whether to seek the death penalty work in the federal system? Finally, how does the Department of Justice approach the trials of capital crimes? Feds Rod Rosenstein, Johnny Sutton, and Carmen Ortiz – 3 former U.S. Attorneys who have extensive personal involvement in federal capital cases – unpack all these questions and detail the personal experience of seeking the ultimate penalty. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Talking Feds team, take a moment to tell us what you like and what you'd like us to improve about this podcast.
0:06.4	Head to our website, TalkingFeds.com and participate in our listener survey.
0:11.6	It only takes a few minutes and you can complete the survey anonymously. Thanks!
0:24.1	Welcome back to Talking Feds, a prosecutor's round table that brings together
0:28.8	prominent former federal officials for a dynamic discussion of the most important legal topics of the day.
0:36.4	I'm Harry Litman, I'm a former United States attorney and deputy assistant attorney general
0:41.3	and a current Washington Post columnist. Today, we're having a special podcast about the federal
0:49.3	death penalty and we've got three former feds, all former United States attorneys,
0:54.9	with extensive experience to cover the topic. First, we're joined by Carmen Ortiz,
1:01.2	counsel at Anderson and Krieger. Carmen is the former United States attorney for the District
1:06.8	of Massachusetts in Boston, where she served from 2009 to 2017. She was the first woman and the first
1:15.2	Hispanic person to serve in that position. During her tenure, she oversaw the investigation and
1:21.2	litigation of many significant and complex criminal and civil cases, including the prosecution
1:28.0	of Whitey Bulger. And then one very note worthy capital case. What was that, Carmen?
1:35.2	Well, the one that, you know, cross America drew a lot of attention was the Boston Marathon
1:39.8	bombings. One of the culprits, Joe Carson I.F. lived to then be processed in court to be,
1:46.7	he was indicted and he was charged and convicted of the underlying offenses. I think younger brothers,
1:54.8	right? He was the younger brother. He was 19 at the time of the commission of the offense. But I
2:00.8	do want to just quickly say that very notable as well and unusual for Massachusetts was the
2:06.5	capital case of Gary Samson, who was a serial killer and killed three people. And what happened
2:11.6	there? Give us a quick skinny. The quick skinny is that Gary Samson actually pled to the underlying
2:17.1	offenses and went to trial on the sentencing phase. The jury imposed the death penalty and 11
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