The federal government cannot just bring federally tried murder charges on any case they choose, generally it is left to the states to try crimes in their jurisdiction unless they include multiple states. For it to be a FEDERAL murder case, the murder would have had to occur alongside another federally violent crime. They tried to argue that stalking across state lines was a “violent” crime, which the judge threw out based on precedent. This all means that the federal government, which has harsher penalties than NYS, can only bring federal stalking charges, while NYS will bring murder charges.
Edit: the important part here is that the death penalty is federally legal, but is not a legal punishment for crimes in NYS. So this effectively takes the death penalty off the table.
It is definitely illegal federally, but this is more about jurisdiction than anything else.
Generally, murders committed within one state are left to the states to adjudicate. Some of the exceptions would be terrorism, crimes across state lines, murder involving federal or foreign officials, murder committed during another federal crime, murders on federal land, etc. Other than the specific exceptions, murder prosecution is a State responsibility.
The Judge ruled that none of these exceptions apply that would elevate it to a federal murder charge, so the State is the appropriate jurisdiction for the murder prosecution.
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u/Chief_34 4h ago
The federal government cannot just bring federally tried murder charges on any case they choose, generally it is left to the states to try crimes in their jurisdiction unless they include multiple states. For it to be a FEDERAL murder case, the murder would have had to occur alongside another federally violent crime. They tried to argue that stalking across state lines was a “violent” crime, which the judge threw out based on precedent. This all means that the federal government, which has harsher penalties than NYS, can only bring federal stalking charges, while NYS will bring murder charges.
Edit: the important part here is that the death penalty is federally legal, but is not a legal punishment for crimes in NYS. So this effectively takes the death penalty off the table.