[1] Before 1973, the District of Columbia was exclusively governed by the United States Congress, which included establishing all local laws.
Until 1962, the District of Columbia was the last jurisdiction in the United States with mandatory death sentences for first-degree murder (the last state with mandatory death sentences for first degree murder was Vermont).
Mandatory death sentences were abolished by the HR5143 (PL87-423), signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on March 22, 1962.
[3] The D.C. capital punishment law was nullified by the Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia in 1972 and formally repealed by the D.C. Council in 1981.
In 1997, Mayor Marion Barry proposed a bill allowing capital punishment for the murder of public safety employees, which was rejected by the council's Judiciary Committee.