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…

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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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