Terre Haute - The execution of Timothy McVeigh will be the first by the US federal government since 1963. However, US states have been executing convicted criminals since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Capital punishment is legal in 38 of the 50 US states. The last state to bring back the death penalty was New York in 1995. Illinois placed a moratorium on executions last year because of concern about the fairness of the legal process.