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…

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Oct 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…

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Jun 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…

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Aug 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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