Minnesota does not have the death penalty. The state abolished capital punishment in 1911 and has not executed anyone since 1906, making it one of the earliest states to permanently reject the practice.1Death Penalty Information Center. Minnesota The harshest sentence a Minnesota court can impose is life in prison, and for the most serious killings that life sentence comes without any possibility of release. Federal prosecutors, however, can still seek a death sentence for federal crimes committed on Minnesota soil.
The Maximum Sentence in Minnesota
With execution unavailable, first-degree murder in Minnesota is punished by life imprisonment. Minnesota Statute 609.185 provides that anyone convicted of first-degree murder “shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life.”2Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 609.185 – Murder in the First Degree The statute reaches premeditated murder, murder during a sexual assault or kidnapping, murder of a peace officer or judge acting in an official capacity, murder connected to a pattern of child abuse or domestic abuse, and murder committed to further terrorism.
Whether that life sentence carries any chance of release depends on Minnesota Statute 609.106.3Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 609.106 – Heinous Crimes Life without the possibility of release is mandatory for premeditated murder, murder during a criminal sexual assault, murder during a kidnapping, murder of a peace officer, judge, or prosecutor, and murder committed to further terrorism. For other first-degree murder categories, including murder during a burglary, robbery, or arson, murder tied to a pattern of child abuse, and domestic-abuse murder, life without release applies only if the defendant has a prior conviction for a heinous crime as the statute defines it.
One carve-out matters. Under subdivision 3 of 609.106, an offender who was under eighteen at the time of a first-degree murder receives a life sentence but keeps the possibility of eventual release, reflecting U.S. Supreme Court rulings against mandatory life-without-parole for juveniles.
Why Minnesota Abolished the Death Penalty
Between 1860 and 1906, Minnesota executed twenty-seven people by hanging under state authority. The last of those executions ended the practice. On February 13, 1906, the state hanged William Williams for murder, and the hanging went badly: the sheriff miscalculated the rope, Williams struck the floor when the trap door opened, and three deputies on the scaffold pulled the rope upward until he died by strangulation roughly fourteen and a half minutes later.4MNopedia. Execution of William Williams Newspapers defied a state law that restricted execution coverage and published the details, and the public reaction gave momentum to an already-growing abolition movement.
Five years later, Representative George MacKenzie introduced a bill ending the practice. Governor Adolph Eberhart signed it as Chapter 387 of the Laws of 1911, removing execution from the list of criminal penalties available in Minnesota courts.5Minnesota State Law Library. Capital Punishment in Minnesota
Attempts to Bring It Back
Minnesota legislators have introduced reinstatement bills at least twenty-two times since 1911, often after high-profile murders. Bills appeared in 1913, 1915, 1919, 1921, 1923, 1927, 1931, 1933, 1937, and again from the 1970s through the mid-2000s. A cluster of 2003 bills followed a triple homicide in Long Prairie. None has passed, and none has reached the governor’s desk.1Death Penalty Information Center. Minnesota The last serious push came in 2005, and the issue has been largely dormant in the legislature since.
Federal Death Penalty in Minnesota
Minnesota’s abolition applies only to state prosecutions. The federal government can still seek a death sentence for federal crimes committed anywhere in the country, including inside Minnesota. Under 18 U.S.C. ยง 3591, federal capital eligibility covers offenses involving intentional killing along with treason, espionage, and certain large-scale drug trafficking crimes committed as part of a continuing criminal enterprise.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3591 – Sentence of Death The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 expanded the list to roughly sixty eligible offenses.7Death Penalty Information Center. Federal Death Penalty These cases are tried in United States District Court, and state sentencing law has no bearing on the outcome.
Federal prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in any Minnesota-based case between the Supreme Court’s 1976 reinstatement of capital punishment and 2025. That year, federal charges carrying potential death sentences were filed against Vance Boelter, the first time a Minnesota defendant has faced that prospect in the modern era. The case is pending and no death sentence has been imposed.
Current Status of Federal Executions
The federal death penalty’s practical reach shifts with each administration. The Biden administration imposed a moratorium on federal executions and declined to seek death sentences in many cases. In early 2025, the Trump administration rescinded that moratorium, authorized seeking death sentences against dozens of defendants, and directed the Bureau of Prisons to reinstate its lethal-injection protocol.8U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Takes Actions to Strengthen the Federal Death Penalty In February 2026, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction that has temporarily blocked federal executions from moving forward. The legal landscape remains in flux, but the practical point for Minnesota residents is straightforward: the state’s century-old abolition offers no protection against a federal capital prosecution.