Federal Seeks Death Penalty for Inmate Petty

Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Ishmael Petty, a 56-year-old inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary-Florence, Administrative Maximum Facility in Colorado, charged with first-degree murder for the 2020 killing of a fellow inmate. Petty, who has been incarcerated since 1998 for an armed bank robbery, was previously sentenced to life in prison for the 2002 murder of an inmate in Louisiana and received a 60-year sentence for a 2015 assault on federal officers. Attorney General Pam Bondi has authorized the pursuit of capital punishment, marking this as a rare federal death penalty case, given Colorado's 2020 repeal of capital punishment. This pursuit aligns with federal law, which applies the death penalty across all states, though executions are infrequent. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado and the DOJ’s Criminal Division’s Capital Case Section. If successful, this would be the first modern-era federal death sentence in Colorado.