Death Penalty Instructions of the COMMENT

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Section: Death Penalty Instructions

346

PATTERN CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS

COMMENT

Scope of Instructions

These instructions have been prepared for proceedings under the

Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA), 18 U.S.C. section 3591 et seq, which

now governs sentencing procedure in all federal capital cases. See United

States v. Barrett, 496 F.3d 1079, 1106 (10th Cir. 2007) (noting repeal of

separate capital sentencing procedure in 21 U.S.C. § 848 “effectively

rendered the FDPA applicable to all death-eligible offenses”), cert. denied

552 U.S. 1260 (2008). They are framed in terms of common homicide of-

fenses and should be readily applicable in, or easily adapted to, most

federal capital prosecutions.

To avoid proliferation of alternative instructions and bracketed

language, this set of instructions is drafted for the basic case in which the

jury must choose between a sentence of death and a sentence of life

without possibility of release. The adjustments necessary to accom-

modate other sentencing choices, though unwieldy and impractical for

pattern instructions, should be a straightforward matter in any particu-

lar case.