DPI 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 DPI. 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 DPI’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 DPI’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.
 

Reports: 51 — 55

Oct 18, 2005

Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth

Blind Justice, the most recent report to be released by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), is the first to focus on the prob­lems of the death penal­ty from the per­spec­tive of jurors. While jurors have always occu­pied an esteemed posi­tion in the broad­er crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in the United States, in cap­i­tal cas­es the respon­si­bil­i­ty of jurors is even more crit­i­cal as they decide whether defen­dants should live or die. Even with this unique author­i­ty in capital…

Read More

Dec 15, 2004

The Death Penalty in 2004: Year End Report

By every mea­sure, the death penal­ty in the U.S. has been in decline since 1999 and the evi­dence from 2004 con­tin­ues that trend. Whether exam­in­ing death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, the size of death row or pub­lic sup­port, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment num­bers have dropped in a way not seen in…

Read More

Sep 01, 2004

Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty

This report cat­a­logs the emer­gence of inno­cence as the most impor­tant issue in the long-sim­mer­ing death penal­ty debate. The sheer num­ber of cas­es and the per­va­sive aware­ness of this trend in the public’s con­scious­ness have changed the way cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is per­ceived around the coun­try. The steady evo­lu­tion of this issue since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976 has been accel­er­at­ed in recent years by the devel­op­ment of DNA tech­nol­o­gy, the new gold…

Read More

Dec 18, 2003

The Death Penalty in 2003: Year End Report

The death penal­ty con­tin­ued its recent attri­tion in 2003, with exe­cu­tions, death sen­tences, and the death row pop­u­la­tion all low­er than a few years ago. Public sup­port for the death penal­ty dropped to its low­est lev­el in 25 years. At the same time, exon­er­a­tions from death row helped spur leg­isla­tive reforms in the capital punishment…

Read More

Dec 17, 2002

The Death Penalty in 2002: Year End Report

In 2002, the death penal­ty con­tin­ued to come under increas­ing scruti­ny and its use became more geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed with­in the United States. Executions occurred almost exclu­sive­ly in the South, and one state, Texas, account­ed for three times as many as the total in the West, Midwest, and Northeast…

Read More