18 U.S.C. § 34
Section 34 · Penalty when death results
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 38 court decisions — leading case Furman v. Georgia (1972)
Most recently applied in Scalise v. Davis (September 2022)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Whoever is convicted of any crime prohibited by this chapter, which has resulted in the death of any person, shall be subject also to the death penalty or to imprisonment for life.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1994—Pub. L. 103–322 substituted “imprisonment for life.” for “imprisonment for life, if the jury shall in its discretion so direct, or, in the case of a plea of guilty, or a plea of not guilty where the defendant has waived a trial by jury, if the court in its discretion shall so order.”