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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

Sep 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 to play in the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment today.

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Jul 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 glob­al pan­dem­ic in gen­er­a­tions. The resump­tion of exe­cu­tions along…

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Jun 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 were exe­cut­ed 20 or more years after hav­ing been sen­tenced to death, also…

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Dec 17, 2019

The Death Penalty in 2019: Year End Report

Capital pun­ish­ment con­tin­ued to with­er across the United States in 2019, dis­ap­pear­ing com­plete­ly in some regions and sig­nif­i­cant­ly erod­ing in oth­ers. New Hampshire became the 21st state to abol­ish the death penal­ty and California became the fourth state with a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. With those actions, half of all U.S. states have abol­ished the death penal­ty or now pro­hib­it exe­cu­tions, and no state in New England autho­rizes cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at all.

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