Here’s just some of what DPI found in 2025:
• Executions rose from 25 in 2024 to 48* in 2025. The change is due almost entirely to a dramatic increase in executions in Florida, which alone accounted for 19* executions, or 40% of the year’s total.
• More than half of all juries in capital trials this year chose life sentences without the possibility of parole, rather than death sentences. This was true even in Alabama and Florida, the two states that allow non-unanimous juries to recommend death sentences.
• This year’s Gallup poll found that support for the death penalty is at a 50-year low of 52%. Opposition to the death penalty is at an historic high — 44% of Americans do not support use of the death penalty.
• Despite the increase in executions, the U.S. Supreme Court denied every request to stay an execution in 2025.
These facts and data are the foundation of informed public debate about use of the death penalty — one of the most consequential decisions governments make.
The publication of DPI’s Year End Report is the culmination of many months of hard work, but with your support, DPI’s work will continue: we are already tracking new developments, responding to media inquiries, and ensuring the public has access to reliable information about the death penalty.
This is the work your support makes possible — not just once a year, but every day.
* Asterisks are expected final numbers
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With gratitude,
