DPIC Year-End Reports
Dec 01, 1997
The Death Penalty in 1997: Year End Report
As of December 15, 1997, there were 74 executions in the country this year, 18 more than in 1995, the previous record year.
DPIC Reports
Below are reports released by the Death Penalty Information Center since its inception, covering subjects such as race, innocence, politicization, costs of the death penalty, and more. When opening a report, please allow the report page to load fully before selecting links to sections or footnotes. Most of these reports are also available in printed form from DPIC. For a copy of one of these reports, e-mail DPIC. For bulk orders, please download our Resource Order Form.
Reports are separated into Year End Reports, In-Depth Reports, and Special Reports. In-Depth Reports are DPIC's signature long, thorough reports on major death-penalty issues. These include "The 2% Death Penalty," examining geographic arbitrariness in capital punishment, and "Behind the Curtain," covering secrecy in the death penalty system. Special Reports are shorter, and typically address a specific event or question. These include DPIC's explanation of the 2017 spate of executions that were scheduled in Arkansas, and our analysis of the largest number of executions performed on a single day.
Latest
DPIC In-Depth Reports
Jul 01, 1997
Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent
This report tells the stories of people like Rolando Cruz, released after 10 years on Illinois’s death row, despite the fact that another man had confessed to the crime shortly after his conviction; and Ricardo Aldape Guerra, who returned to Mexico after 15 years on Texas’s death row because of a prosecution that a federal judge called outrageous…
DPIC Year-End Reports
Dec 17, 1996
The Death Penalty in 1996: Year End Report
The overall pace of executions in the United States remained high in 1996 and the prospects for the future are for even greater numbers of people put to death each year. Texas, the nation’s leader in executions for many years, virtually stopped executions this year pending resolution of a challenge to the state’s new appeal laws.
DPIC In-Depth Reports
Oct 18, 1996
Killing for Votes: The Dangers of Politicizing the Death Penalty Process
Not only are candidates for legislative office campaigning loudly on the death penalty, even judges and local prosecutors are citing the numbers of people they have sent to death row in their campaigns for office. Many of those seizing the anti-crime mantle not only advocate capital punishment, but also seek to out-do each other in expanding the…
DPIC In-Depth Reports
Jun 01, 1996
Twenty Years of Capital Punishment: A Re-Evaluation
One day the Court will outlaw the death penalty. Brennan, Jr., retired Supreme Court Justice, 1996 [1] “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored – indeed, I have struggled – along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend…
