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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: 26 — 30

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…

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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…

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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…

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Nov 10, 2015

Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty

In many respects, vet­er­ans in the United States are again receiv­ing the respect and grat­i­tude they deserve for hav­ing risked their lives and served their coun­try. Wounded sol­diers are wel­comed home, and their courage in start­ing a new and dif­fi­cult jour­ney in civil­ian life is right­ly applaud­ed. But some vet­er­ans with debil­i­tat­ing scars from their time in com­bat have received a very dif­fer­ent recep­tion. They have been judged to be the ​“worst of the worst” crim­i­nals, deprived of mercy,…

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