Publications & Testimony

DPI’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters:The race of vic­tims weighs heav­i­ly in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment deci­sions. Studies con­firm that defen­dants with white vic­tims are more like­ly to be charged cap­i­tal­ly, sen­tenced to death, have those sen­tences upheld on appeal, and be exe­cut­ed. ​“The strongest…

On March 30, 2026, law­mak­ers in Israel passed the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law by a vote of 62 to 48, mak­ing Israel one of few democ­ra­cies to expand cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in recent years. The law man­dates death by hang­ing for offens­es clas­si­fied as​“ter­ror­ism relat­ed” — and as writ­ten, applies exclu­sive­ly to Palestinians. The new law also requires that sen­tences must be car­ried out with­in 90 days of a final rul­ing. UN experts have warned that under international…

In a February 2026 arti­cle pub­lished in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Professor Deborah Denno charts how exe­cu­tion meth­ods in the United States​“have become cru­el­er” over the past fifty years. Her arti­cle details exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dures adopt­ed across death penal­ty states from 1977 to 2025, ana­lyz­ing their soci­etal and cul­tur­al under­pin­nings, and expos­ing their​“flaws, unsci­en­tif­ic ori­gins, and reliance on unqual­i­fied exe­cu­tion­ers.” > ​“Boyd asks for the…

For 35 years, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) has care­ful­ly tracked and ana­lyzed how the death penal­ty is used in the United States. DPI is the only nation­al orga­ni­za­tion that mon­i­tors new death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, pub­lic opin­ion, leg­is­la­tion, and news­wor­thy events, pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal con­text to facil­i­tate mean­ing­ful pub­lic debate and inform sound pol­i­cy deci­sions about the death penal­ty. DPI’s most pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion­al resource,​“Facts…

Iran hanged three men — Saleh Mohammadi, Saeed Davodi, and Mehdi Ghasemi — in the city of Qom on March 19, 2026, the day before the nation’s new year. According to the judi­­ci­a­ry-affil­i­at­ed Mizan News Agency, the three men, who were accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the killings of two police­men dur­ing protests, were hanged​“in the pres­ence of a group of peo­ple.” This marked the first exe­cu­tion of pro­tes­tors fol­low­ing the recent wave of nation­wide protests, which began on…

Texas pros­e­cu­tors sent Rodney Reed to death row for the 1996 mur­der of Stacey Stites, whom they argued was stran­gled with her own leather belt. Yet for over a decade, state offi­cials have fought Mr. Reed’s requests to test that belt for the killer’s DNA. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Reed’s law­suit seek­ing the test was time­ly, and last year it struck down Texas’ attempts to block DNA test­ing in two oth­er cap­i­tal cas­es. However, on March 23, the Court…

DPI’s​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time. Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. Why it mat­ters: While the U.S. Supreme Court has barred the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, no such cat­e­gor­i­cal ban exists for those with severe men­tal ill­ness (SMI). Consequently, peo­ple suf­fer­ing from active psy­chosis, delu­sions, or…