More support for an exclusively federal death penalty

Howard Bashman has all the news coverage of yesterday’s notable federal death sentence imposed in New York.  Among other interesting details, this New York Times article about the case highlights that “[f]ederal prosecutors vigorously sought the death penalty against Mr. Wilson, taking the case from state prosecutors in Staten Island after the New York death penalty was largely invalidated in 2004.” 

These realities draw me again to the idea, discussed recently here, that states should rarely (if ever) bother to pursue capital cases and simply request that federal authorities assume primary responsibility for pursuing the death penalty in the most horrific murder cases.  The federal government already tends to dominate the prosecution of the worst white-collar crimes and drug crimes, so why shouldn’t they take on primary responsibility for the (much smaller universe) of terrible homicides?

Among other benefits, federal-focused death penalty would greatly reduce habeas headaches.  Outside the war-on-terror setting, most legal habeas battles (in the Supreme Court and in lower federal courts) are about state capital cases.  If the feds were to prosecute most capital cases, significant federalism issues and (confusing AEDPA doctrines) fade away.

Some recent related posts:

• A poster child for the (federal) death penalty?
• The federal law gap in the NJ death penalty report
• The federal death penalty in America’s paradise
• Ashcroft’s death penalty “legacy”
• How could (and should) Congress clean up the lethal injection mess?
• A lethal hearing (in the wrong place?)
• Isn’t it finally time for Congress to do something about lethal injection problems?