Methodology

DPI​’s Year End Report reflects the long­stand­ing research efforts and exper­tise of its staff. Reliable infor­ma­tion about the death penal­ty has always been dif­fi­cult to access and is increas­ing­ly kept secret by many state offi­cials. DPI​’s staff spend many hours secur­ing crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion from a vari­ety of sources and con­firm­ing its accu­ra­cy. DPI​’s method­ol­o­gy ensures the robust­ness of its quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive find­ings, tri­an­gu­lat­ing all data with judi­cial, gov­ern­men­tal, and schol­ar­ly resources, and col­lab­o­rat­ing with estab­lished aca­d­e­mics in the field as well as rep­utable advo­ca­cy and/​or media sources. DPI cor­rob­o­rates its find­ings with con­tacts includ­ing pub­lic defend­ers, state depart­ments of cor­rec­tions, and oth­er state offi­cials. DPI also relies on its own Death Penalty Census Database, which tracks every indi­vid­ual sen­tenced to death since 1972 and which is con­tin­u­ous­ly updat­ed through­out the year. Each entry in the Census Database is rig­or­ous­ly ver­i­fied by two inde­pen­dent sources for our cen­tral data fields, includ­ing the names of defen­dants and vic­tims, charges, sen­tenc­ing, appel­late pro­ce­dure, and case devel­op­ments such as exon­er­a­tions or exe­cu­tions. The raw data is stored on a con­fi­den­tial, secure dri­ve that is not pub­licly acces­si­ble. Specific doc­u­ments and data may be avail­able to researchers and the pub­lic upon request. DPI always wel­comes cor­rec­tions or additions.

DPI is an inde­pen­dent, non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that relies on the gen­eros­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als and char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions to fund its work. As demand for our resources grows, please con­sid­er mak­ing a tax-deductible dona­tion today that will pro­vide us with the essen­tial fund­ing we need to con­tin­ue serv­ing as the most reli­able source of infor­ma­tion on the death penalty.