Federal Offenses

• At the federal level, all crimes punished by death penalty include murder in combination with other offenses, such as the smuggling of aliens; drug-related shootings; destruction of aircraft, vehicles or facilities; civil rights offenses; transportation of explosives, destruction of government property or destruction of property related to foreign or interstate commerce; mailing of injurious articles with intent to kill; and offenses against maritime navigation or maritime fixed platforms. Offenses like bank-robbery, torture, racketeering, wrecking a train, carjacking, rape or child molestation, sexual exploitation of children, use of weapons of mass destruction and aircraft hijacking are also included in the death penalty federal laws.
  
  

Other Federal Offenses

• Federal laws provide for death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officials or retaliatory murder of their immediate family members; murder of an executive official, a Supreme Court justice, a witness, victim or informant; first-degree murder and genocide; murder of a federal, state or local law enforcement official aiding in a federal investigation; murder of a U.S. official in a foreign country; and assassination or kidnapping resulting in the death of the president or vice-president. Treason, terrorism and espionage are also added to the list of crimes punishable by death.
  
  

State Laws

• The most recent data available with the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice are for capital punishment laws existing in 2008; at present, New Mexico (2009) and Illinois (2011) should be excepted from these statistics, as having abolished death penalty to this date. State laws vary from state to state and include several types of murder such as capital murder, aggravated murder and first-degree murder. They constitute the only capital punishment offenses in some states; in others, they are accompanied by up to 16 aggravating factors or circumstances and/or by other criminal offenses, depending on the state.
  
  

Other State Offenses

• Under the 2008 state laws released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, other offenses in combination with murder include sabotage, train wrecking causing death, treason, perjury causing execution of an innocent person, fatal assault by a prisoner serving a life sentence, felony murder, capital drug trafficking, capital sexual battery, aircraft hijacking, perjury resulting in death, killing of a law enforcement officer, murder for hire, murder by an inmate while serving a sentence of life without parole, sex crimes against a child under 14 or under 16 (varies with state), arson, robbery, escape and resisting arrest. First-degree kidnapping resulting in death and murder committed in the course of sexual assault, rape, kidnapping or drug-related crimes are also capital punishment crimes.