HIGHLIGHTS FROM DPIC’s NEW INNOCENCE REPORT

DPIC recently released its latest report entitled “Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty.” The report is available from this Web site , or printed copies may be purchased by emailing DPIC .

Some highlights from the report include:

  • 116 inmates have been exonerated and freed from death row in 25 states since 1973.

  • These defendants together spent over 1,000 years incarcerated between their sentencing and exoneration.

  • More than half of the exonerations have occurred in the South, the region with the most executions.

  • 61% of those exonerated were from racial minorities.

  • As the pace of exonerations has increased in recent years, death sentences around the country have dropped by 50%. Public support is now almost evenly split between life without parole and the death penalty for those convicted of murder.