Facts About the Death Penalty – Has an Innocent Person Ever Been Executed?

An unde­ni­able truth of the death penal­ty is that it car­ries the inher­ent risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent indi­vid­u­als. Many may believe that the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent per­son is an anom­aly and that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem has ade­quate safe­guards in place to rec­ti­fy wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. 

Fact: For Every 8 Individuals Executed in the Modern Era, One Other Death-Sentenced Person has been Found Innocent. 

Since 1973, 200 death-sen­tenced peo­ple have been for­mal­ly exon­er­at­ed, while over 1,630 indi­vid­u­als have been exe­cut­ed. Others have been posthu­mous­ly exon­er­at­ed after their exe­cu­tions. In a land­mark 2014 study, the National Academy of Sciences found that 4.1% of con­demned indi­vid­u­als in the United States are like­ly inno­cent, which they remind is a con­ser­v­a­tive esti­mate. DPI track­ing indi­cates that from 2000 to 2020, there were an aver­age of 4.29 exon­er­a­tions per year. 

Fact: Most Innocence Cases are Not Based on DNA Evidence. 

It is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that DNA evi­dence is wide­ly avail­able, and that it is even cen­tral to exon­er­a­tions. The real­i­ty is that DNA exon­er­a­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es are sur­pris­ing­ly rare. According to the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah, DNA test­ing is used in less than 1% of all crim­i­nal cas­es. 

A review of the 200 cap­i­tal exon­er­a­tions to date by DPI found 34 cas­es were attrib­ut­able to DNA evi­dence. Before 2000, only a hand­ful of states even allowed post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing. The 2004 Innocence Protection Act amend­ed the Federal crim­i­nal code to estab­lish pro­ce­dures for post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing in Federal court if ​“the pro­posed DNA test­ing would pro­duce new mate­r­i­al evi­dence to sup­port the defense the­o­ry and raise a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that the appli­cant did not com­mit the offense.” The Act also includes fund­ing for DNA analy­sis for con­vict­ed indi­vid­u­als. Today, all fifty states have enact­ed statutes allow­ing for post-con­vic­tion DNA analy­sis, though the pro­ce­dur­al require­ments in some states some­times act to prevent testing. 

The Equal Justice Initiative notes many fac­tors can lead to wrong­ful con­vic­tions, includ­ing erro­neous eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, false or coerced con­fes­sions, inad­e­quate legal defense, and false or mis­lead­ing foren­sic evi­dence. There are also oppor­tu­ni­ties for bias against the defen­dant to affect legal pro­ceed­ings and impact the views of juries, judges, and gov­er­nors. Politicization and arbi­trari­ness of crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, espe­cial­ly in cap­i­tal cas­es, also influ­ence sentencing outcomes. 

Fact: Race Plays a Substantial Role in Wrongful Sentencing and Executions. 

The National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) reports that in 2024, 78% of all exonerees were peo­ple of col­or, and near­ly 60% were Black. Black peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der were 80% more like­ly to be inno­cent than those of oth­er races. Additionally, exonerees accused of mur­der who are Black spent three years longer in prison before release com­pared to white mur­der exonerees. When con­sid­er­ing those who had death sen­tences imposed in the mod­ern death penal­ty era, and were lat­er exon­er­at­ed, DPI found 64% were peo­ple of col­or, 54% Black and 10% Latino/​a. 

According to DPI data, 75% of indi­vid­u­als exe­cut­ed in the mod­ern era were sen­tenced to death for mur­ders involv­ing white indi­vid­u­als, even though around half of all homi­cide vic­tims are Black. According to the NRE, while only 13% of mur­ders com­mit­ted by Black indi­vid­u­als have white vic­tims, 26% of inno­cent Black mur­der exonerees were for­mer­ly con­vict­ed of killing white individuals. 

Official mis­con­duct occurred in 71% of all exon­er­a­tions in 2024, accord­ing to the NRE. Official mis­con­duct includes per­jury, wit­ness tam­per­ing, and taint­ed iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures com­mit­ted by offi­cials like police or the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al team. Black exonerees for­mer­ly sen­tenced to death were vic­tims of offi­cial mis­con­duct at a rate of 87%, com­pared to 68% for white condemned exonerees.