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: 26 — 30

Dec 08, 2017

Background on Arkansas April 2017 Executions

Eight exe­cu­tions were sched­uled in Arkansas from April 17 – 27, 2017. The state sched­uled two exe­cu­tions per day on four days dur­ing that peri­od. The men sched­uled for exe­cu­tion were (top row, from left to right) Bruce Ward, Marcel Williams, Jason McGehee, and Kenneth Williams; (bot­tom row, from left to right) Stacey Johnson, Ledell Lee, Don Davis, and Jack Jones. The state car­ried out four exe­cu­tions dur­ing this…

Read More

Mar 23, 2017

DPIC Analysis: What is the Most Executions Conducted in the U.S. in the Shortest Time Span?

On February 27, 2017, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed orders for an unprece­dent­ed eight exe­cu­tions to be car­ried out over a peri­od of eleven days in April. The sched­uled dates for the four sets of dou­ble exe­cu­tions are: April 17, Bruce Ward and Don Davis; April 20, Stacey Johnson and Ledell Lee; April 24, Jack Jones and Marcel Williams; and April 27, Kenneth Williams and Jason McGehee. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge had asked that the dates be set after the U.S. Supreme…

Read More

Dec 21, 2016

The Death Penalty in 2016: Year End Report

(Washington, D.C.) Death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, and pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment all con­tin­ued his­toric declines in 2016. American juries imposed the fewest death sen­tences in the mod­ern era of U.S. cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, since the Supreme Court declared exist­ing death penal­ty statutes uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1972. The expect­ed 30 new death sen­tences in 2016 rep­re­sent a 39 per­cent decline from last year’s already 40-year low of 49. The 20 exe­cu­tions this year marked the low­est num­ber in a…

Read More

Oct 03, 2016

California Votes: Propositions 62 and 66

This November, Californians face impor­tant votes on two bal­lot ini­tia­tives relat­ed to the death penal­ty: Prop 62 and Prop 66. Prop 62 pro­pos­es to repeal the death penal­ty in California and replace it with impris­on­ment for life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, while Prop 66 pro­pos­es to speed up the process of adju­di­cat­ing cap­i­tal appeals in state court through a num­ber of com­plex adjust­ments to the process. Both propo­si­tions would require pris­on­ers to work in prison to pay resti­tu­tion to the…

Read More