Murder, Inc. leader Lepke Buchalter was executed, becoming the only American mob boss to receive the death penalty after being convicted of murder.

Murder, Inc. was an organized crime group active from 1929 to 1941 that acted as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate – a closely connected criminal organization that included Italian-American Mafia, the Jewish Mob, and other criminal organizations in New York City and elsewhere. Murder, Inc. was composed of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters, and members were mainly recruited from poor and working-class Jewish and Italian neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was initially headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and later by Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia.

Louis Buchalter, known as Louis Lepke or Lepke Buchalter, was a Jewish-American organized crime figure and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc., during the 1930s. Buchalter was one of the premier labor union racketeers in New York City during that era.

The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society and organized crime group. The terms Italian Mafia and Italian Mob apply to these US-based organizations, as well as the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy, or ethnic Italian crime groups in other countries. These organizations are often referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original Mafia or Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia groups from Sicily operating in the United States.

In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty in 27 states, throughout the country at the federal level, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in the other 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 21 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 6, subject to moratoriums.