Story highlights Only three federal inmates have been executed since death penalty was reinstated in 1988

Juries have handed down 74 federal death sentence verdicts since the death penalty was reinstated

In federal death penalty cases juries choose death about 30% of the time

(CNN) Now that a death sentence was given Friday to convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, many Americans may be surprised to know he could live a relatively long time on death row.

That's partly because only three federal inmates have been executed in the United States since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988 after a 16-year moratorium. Those three are:

-- Timothy McVeigh for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. He was executed June 11, 2001.

-- Juan Raul Garza convicted of killing three people and running a marijuana drug ring in Texas. He was executed June 19, 2001.

-- Louis Jones for the kidnapping and murder of 19-year-old Army Pvt. Tracie McBride. He was executed March 18, 2003.

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