18 U.S.C. § 34 (2024)

This is the official text of 18 U.S.C. § 34 (2024), part of Federal (US Code)’s United States Code — the codified general and permanent federal statutes of the United States, organized into more than 50 numbered titles by subject.

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Penalty when death results

Official statutory text

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.

(Added July 14, 1956, ch. 595, §1, 70 Stat. 540; amended Pub. L. 103–322, title VI, §60003(a)(1), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 1968.)

Editorial Notes

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."

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.