Entries by Death Penalty Information Center

On June 29, 2026, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed a low­er court’s deci­sion find­ing Jimmie Duncan fac­tu­al­ly inno­cent and vacat­ing his first-degree mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Mr. Duncan was sen­tenced to death for the 1993 death of his girlfriend’s tod­dler, Haley Oliveaux, large­ly based on faulty bite mark evi­dence. In April 2025, Louisiana District Court Judge Alvin Sharp held that expert tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed dur­ing an evi­den­tiary hearing demonstrated…

As glob­al experts gath­er in Paris this week to exam­ine the state of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment world­wide, the Death Penalty Information Center will be among them, as a source of author­i­ta­tive data and research on how the death penal­ty is oper­at­ing in the United States. The 9^th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, orga­nized by ECPM (Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort) and host­ed by the French Republic, runs June 30 through July 2 at the Maison de la Radio et de la Musique in…

Saturday April 25^th is National DNA Day, mark­ing the anniver­sary of the 1953 dis­cov­ery of DNA​’s dou­ble helix struc­ture and the 2003 com­ple­tion of the Human Genome Project. Today, the Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to present a new resource exam­in­ing the con­tro­ver­sial role of​“junk sci­ence” in cap­i­tal cas­es. When DNA test­ing became one of the most rig­or­ous­ly val­i­dat­ed tools in foren­sic sci­ence, its devel­op­ment also prompt­ed greater scruti­ny of other…

DPI​’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters: Deterrence is among the most com­mon­ly cit­ed jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for the death penal­ty, yet decades of research have failed to pro­duce cred­i­ble evi­dence that use of the death penal­ty has an impact on homi­cide rates. ### Key Facts: — 88% of the nation’s…

Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., a Baptist min­is­ter, two-time pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, and out­spo­ken crit­ic of the death penal­ty, died on February 17, 2026, at age 84. His fam­i­ly announced that he died peace­ful­ly, sur­round­ed by his loved ones. Rev. Jackson had been liv­ing with Parkinson’s dis­ease since his diag­no­sis in 2015. Rev. Jackson brought sus­tained pub­lic atten­tion to the death penal­ty across sev­er­al decades, argu­ing its use was insep­a­ra­ble from questions of…

On November 13, 2025, just hours before Tremane Wood was sched­uled for exe­cu­tion, Governor Kevin Stitt accept­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board and reduced Mr. Wood’s sen­tence to life with­out parole. In a state­ment, Gov. Stitt said,​“This action reflects the same pun­ish­ment his broth­er received for their mur­der of an inno­cent young man and ensures a severe pun­ish­ment that keeps a vio­lent offend­er off the streets for­ev­er. In Oklahoma, we will…