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.
Reports: 11 — 15
Oct 23, 2020
DPIC Analysis: Use or Threat of Death Penalty Implicated in 19 Exoneration Cases in 2019
The use or threat of the death penalty was a factor in more than 13% of exonerations across the United States in 2019 and nearly 95% of those cases involved some form of major misconduct, a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has revealed. The DPIC review found that the death penalty played a role in at least 19 of the 143 exonerations in 2019 (13.3%) listed in the Registry’s annual exonerations report, resulting in nearly 500 years…
Read MoreSep 15, 2020
Enduring Injustice: the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty
(Washington, D.C.) As social movements pressure policymakers to redress injustices in the criminal legal system and to institute reforms to make the process more fair and equitable, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) today released, “Enduring Injustice: the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty.” This report provides an in-depth look at the historical role that race has played in the death penalty and details the pervasive role racial discrimination continues…
Read MoreJul 20, 2020
The Federal Government Restarts Federal Executions Amid Procedural Concerns and a Pandemic
The federal government executed Daniel Lewis Lee the morning of July 14, 2020. His execution was the first conducted by the federal government in seventeen years, and it was followed closely by the executions of Wesley Ira Purkey (July 16) and Dustin Lee Honken (July 17). With these executions, the federal government has joined the small minority of jurisdictions that conduct executions and the even smaller number of jurisdictions that are willing to pursue them in the midst of the worst…
Read MoreJul 02, 2020
DPIC MID-YEAR REVIEW: Pandemic and Continuing Historic Decline Produce Record-Low Death Penalty Use in First Half of 2020
The combination of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the continuing broad national decline in the use of capital punishment produced historically low numbers of new death sentences and executions in the first half of…
Read MoreJun 22, 2020
DPIC Analysis — At Least 1,300 Prisoners are on U.S. Death Rows in Violation of U.S. Human Rights Obligations
At least 1,300 prisoners have been incarcerated on U.S. death rows for more than two decades, in violation of U.S. human rights obligations, a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of death-row demographic data has found. The number represents more than half of all U.S. death-row prisoners as of January 1, 2020. Nearly one third of the prisoners whose extended incarcerations on death row violate their human rights are facing execution in California. Nearly 200 more condemned prisoners…
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