Washington, D.C. - The Federal Bureau of Prisons has received an order from the U.S.District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania, to carry out the death sentence of inmate David Paul Hammer at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on November 15, 2000.

Hammer was sentenced to death under Federal law on November 4, 1998, after being convicted in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, of first degree murder in violation 18 U.S.C. § 1111. Hammer pled guilty to killing an inmate in April of 1996, while confined at the United States Penitentiary, in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

Hammer was granted a dismissal of his appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on August 31, 2000, and the case was remanded to the District Court for establishment of a date of execution.

David Paul Hammer, 41 years old, was transferred to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons in December of 1993 from the State of Oklahoma, where he was serving a state sentence totaling in excess of 1,200 years, for numerous crimes he committed in Oklahoma.

In accordance with Federal law, the method of execution will be by lethal injection.