DPIC Year-End Reports
Latest
Dec 01, 2023
The Death Penalty in 2023: Year End Report
Only Five States Conducted Executions and Seven States Imposed New Death Sentences in 2023, the Lowest Number of States in 20 Years. Florida’s Six Executions and Five New Death Sentences Responsible for 2023 Increase. For the First Time, More Americans Believe the Death Penalty Is Administered Unfairly than Fairly.
Read MoreDec 16, 2022
The Death Penalty in 2022: Year End Report
Note: In March 2023, DPIC learned of one additional death sentence that was imposed in 2022: Leo Boatman, a white male defendant, was sentenced to death on November 9, 2022 in Bradford County, Florida, for the murder of Billy Chapman, a white male. Boatman’s death sentence brings the total to 21. The text below does not reflect that death sentence.
Read MoreDec 16, 2021
The Death Penalty in 2021: Year End Report
Key Findings Virginia becomes 23rd state, and first in the South, to abolish the death penalty Seventh consecutive year with fewer than 30 executions and 50 new death sentences New study finds one exoneration for every 8.3 executions Federal execution spree ends, new administration halts all federal executions and announces policy review
Read MoreDec 16, 2020
The Death Penalty in 2020: Year End Report
2020 was abnormal in almost every way, and that was clearly the case when it came to capital punishment in the United States. The interplay of four forces shaped the U.S. death penalty landscape in 2020: the nation’s long-term trend away from capital punishment; the worst global pandemic in more than a century; nationwide protests for racial justice; and the historically aberrant conduct of the federal administration. At the end of the year, more states had abolished the death penalty or gone ten years without an execution, more counties had elected reform prosecutors who pledged never to seek the death penalty or to use it more sparingly; fewer new death sentences were imposed than in any prior year since the Supreme Court struck down U.S. death penalty laws in 1972; and despite a six-month spree of federal executions without parallel in the 20th or 21st centuries, fewer executions were carried out than in any year in nearly three decades.
Read MoreDec 17, 2019
The Death Penalty in 2019: Year End Report
Capital punishment continued to wither across the United States in 2019, disappearing completely in some regions and significantly eroding in others. New Hampshire became the 21st state to abolish the death penalty and California became the fourth state with a moratorium on executions. With those actions, half of all U.S. states have abolished the death penalty or now prohibit executions, and no state in New England authorizes capital punishment at all.
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