DPIC Special Reports
Reports: 6 — 10
Feb 18, 2021
DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic
In 1993, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights conducted hearings on what was then a relatively unknown question: How significant was the risk that innocent people were being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in the United States. After taking testimony from four exonerees who had been wrongfully condemned to death row, Representative Don Edwards, the subcommittee chairman, asked the Death Penalty Information Center to research the issue and…
Read MoreOct 23, 2020
DPIC Analysis: Use or Threat of Death Penalty Implicated in 19 Exoneration Cases in 2019
The use or threat of the death penalty was a factor in more than 13% of exonerations across the United States in 2019 and nearly 95% of those cases involved some form of major misconduct, a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has revealed. The DPIC review found that the death penalty played a role in at least 19 of the 143 exonerations in 2019 (13.3%) listed in the Registry’s annual exonerations report, resulting in nearly 500 years…
Read MoreJul 02, 2020
DPIC MID-YEAR REVIEW: Pandemic and Continuing Historic Decline Produce Record-Low Death Penalty Use in First Half of 2020
The combination of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the continuing broad national decline in the use of capital punishment produced historically low numbers of new death sentences and executions in the first half of…
Read MoreJun 22, 2020
DPIC Analysis — At Least 1,300 Prisoners are on U.S. Death Rows in Violation of U.S. Human Rights Obligations
At least 1,300 prisoners have been incarcerated on U.S. death rows for more than two decades, in violation of U.S. human rights obligations, a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of death-row demographic data has found. The number represents more than half of all U.S. death-row prisoners as of January 1, 2020. Nearly one third of the prisoners whose extended incarcerations on death row violate their human rights are facing execution in California. Nearly 200 more condemned prisoners…
Read MoreAug 30, 2019
Texas Schedules Thirteen Executions in Last Five Months of 2019
The thirteen executions scheduled in Texas in the last five months of 2019 raise troubling questions as to whether the state is executing the most morally culpable individuals for the worst of the worst crimes or the most vulnerable prisoners and prisoners who were provided the worst legal process. Among those scheduled for execution were two men with strong claims of innocence, two who did not directly kill anyone, but were sentenced to death under Texas’ controversial “law of parties,” and…
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