Policy

Innocence

The death penalty carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person. Since 1973, at least 200 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated.

DPI Database: Innocence Database

DPI Database: Innocence Database

A Death Penalty Information Center database of every death-row exoneration since 1972. For every 8 people executed in the United States, one other person has been exonerated from death row.

DPI Analysis: What Lies Behind Wrongful Convictions

DPI Analysis: What Lies Behind Wrongful Convictions

The Most Common Causes of Wrongful Death Penalty Convictions: Official Misconduct and Perjury or False Accusation

Overview

Given the fal­li­bil­i­ty of human judg­ment, there has always been the dan­ger that an exe­cu­tion could result in the killing of an inno­cent per­son. Nevertheless, when the U.S. Supreme Court held the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1972, there was bare­ly any men­tion of the issue of inno­cence in the nine opin­ions issued. Although mis­takes were sure­ly made in the past, the assump­tion pre­vailed that such cas­es were few and far between. Almost every­one on death row was surely guilty.

However, as fed­er­al courts began to more thor­ough­ly review whether state crim­i­nal defen­dants were afford­ed their guar­an­teed rights to due process, errors and offi­cial mis­con­duct began to reg­u­lar­ly appear, requir­ing retri­als. When defen­dants were now afford­ed more expe­ri­enced coun­sel, with fair­ly select­ed juries, and were grant­ed access to sci­en­tif­ic test­ing, some were acquit­ted and released. Since 1973, 200 for­mer death-row pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed of all charges relat­ed to the wrong­ful con­vic­tions that had put them on death row.
 

At Issue

It is now clear that inno­cent defen­dants will be con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death with some reg­u­lar­i­ty as long as the death penal­ty exists. It is unlike­ly that the appeals process — which is main­ly focused on legal errors and not on fac­tu­al deter­mi­na­tions — will catch all the mis­takes. Reforms have been begrudg­ing­ly imple­ment­ed, increas­ing both the costs and the time that the death penal­ty con­sumes, but have not been suf­fi­cient to over­come human error. The pop­u­lar­i­ty and use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have rapid­ly declined as the inno­cence issue has gained atten­tion. The remain­ing ques­tion is how many inno­cent lives are worth sac­ri­fic­ing to pre­serve this punishment.

What DPI Offers

DPI has led the way in high­light­ing the issue of inno­cence. Its list of exon­er­at­ed indi­vid­u­als is pre­sent­ed in a search­able data­base, with links to more com­plete descrip­tions of each case. DPI has issued a series of reports on this issue, col­lect­ing the lat­est infor­ma­tion on why so many mis­takes occur. It also fol­lows the relat­ed ques­tions of whether inno­cent indi­vid­u­als have already been exe­cut­ed and whether some defen­dants are in fact inno­cent, despite not being com­plete­ly exon­er­at­ed in the eyes of the law.

News & Developments


News

Jul 18, 2025

District Judge Sets Unfortunate” New Execution Date for Texas Prisoner Robert Roberson, Despite Pending Petition in Support of His Innocence Claim

On July 16, 2025, Smith County District Judge Austin Reeve Jackson set an exe­cu­tion date of October 16, 2025 for Robert Roberson, a man with a strong inno­cence claim who has a habeas cor­pus peti­tion pend­ing at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA). Judge Jackson, after hear­ing argu­ments from both defense coun­sel for Mr. Roberson and attor­neys from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, ruled that there was no legal basis for not sign­ing an exe­cu­tion order.​“It doesn’t…

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News

Jul 17, 2025

Oklahoma Attorney General Accused in New Court Filings of Reneging on Plea Agreement in Richard Glossip’s Case

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is fac­ing accu­sa­tions that he broke a writ­ten agree­ment that would have freed for­mer death row pris­on­er Richard Glossip from prison more than two years ago, accord­ing to court doc­u­ments filed in mid-July 2025. The rev­e­la­tion cen­ters on email exchanges from April 2023, where AG Drummond, in a thread with Don Knight, coun­sel for Mr. Glossip, agreed to a plea deal that would have result­ed in Mr. Glossip’s imme­di­ate release after more…

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News

Jul 14, 2025

New Louisiana Legislation Will Limit Post-Conviction Appeals, Endangering Innocent Prisoners in an Attempt to Expedite Executions

Recent leg­is­la­tion signed by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry dras­ti­cal­ly restricts the abil­i­ty of pris­on­ers to chal­lenge their con­vic­tions, which those opposed to the law have argued could lead to the exe­cu­tion of inno­cent pris­on­ers. HB 675, signed into law in June 2025, impos­es strict time lim­its on post-con­vic­­tion relief appli­ca­tions and intro­duces​“aban­don­ment” rules that cut off appeal options for pris­on­ers who fail to meet the law’s strict dead­lines. The…

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News

Jul 10, 2025

Federal Court Excoriates Prosecutors in Grant of Relief to Former Virginia Death-Sentenced Prisoner Who Has Always Maintained His Innocence

On July 7, 2025, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of for­mer Virginia death-sen­­tenced pris­on­er Justin Wolfe, vacat­ing a low­er court dis­missal of his most recent habeas peti­tion, and paving the way for a new hear­ing where Mr. Wolfe will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide new evi­dence in sup­port of his inno­cence. Mr. Wolfe was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2002 for the 2001 mur­der-for-hire of his cannabis sup­pli­er in Northern Virginia. In his most…

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News

Jun 30, 2025

Hundreds Rally to Urge Commutation of California’s Death Row

On June 26, 2025, more than 200 Californians and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions gath­ered at the state Capitol to urge California Governor Gavin Newsom to com­mute all death sen­tences. Speakers at the gath­er­ing called California’s death penal­ty statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and not­ed per­sis­tent evi­dence of racial bias, his­toric ties to lynch­ing, inef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion of inno­cent lives, and high costs. California, home to the nation’s largest death row, is…

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