Publications & Testimony

On July 8, 2026, King Charles, fol­low­ing the advice of Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, grant­ed a posthu­mous con­di­tion­al par­don to Ruth Ellis, con­vert­ing her death sen­tence to a term of life impris­on­ment. Ms. Ellis was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death for the April 10, 1955 mur­der of her roman­tic part­ner David Blakely, and she was the last woman hanged in the United Kingdom on July 13, 1955. A press release from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice explains that this…

On July 7, 2026, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee told mem­bers of the media that the state’s sched­uled exe­cu­tions will pro­ceed with­out any changes to the lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, despite the state’s failed attempt to exe­cute Tony Carruthers in May. Gov. Lee stat­ed that the exe­cu­tion team fol­lowed the prop­er pro­to­col dur­ing the attempt­ed exe­cu­tion and that the prob­lem was with locat­ing a suit­able vein for an IV line, rather than with the pro­to­col itself.​“I think, as we…

A June 30 arti­cle by Pamela Colloff, co-pub­­lished in ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, inves­ti­gates Florida’s record-set­t­ing pace of exe­cu­tions over the past 18 months, even as the rest of the coun­try large­ly​“aban­dons” the death penal­ty. Ms. Colloff uses data from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) to empha­size Florida’s out­lier sta­tus, while explor­ing the polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions of the exe­cu­tion spree and its impact on the peo­ple involved. As DPI…

Introduction False state­ments by gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Media wit­ness­es banned from view­ing exe­cu­tions. New laws passed to evade judi­cial review. During the first six months of 2026, the Death Penalty Information Center doc­u­ment­ed new efforts to con­ceal crit­i­cal details about the death penal­ty — even as some gov­ern­ment offi­cials sought to increase and expand its use. These efforts are best under­stood when the truth about the death penal­ty and exe­cu­tions is viewed…

In the July 2026 episode of 12:01: The Death Penalty in Context, DPI’s Executive Director Robin M. Maher speaks with Samuel Spital, Associate Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF). To mark the 50^th anniver­sary of the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Gregg v. Georgia, they explore the his­to­ry of the land­mark case, the piv­otal role played by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the lit­i­ga­tion, and the endur­ing lega­cy of leg­endary LDF attor­ney Anthony Amsterdam. They…

As glob­al experts gath­er in Paris this week to exam­ine the state of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment world­wide, the Death Penalty Information Center will be among them, as a source of author­i­ta­tive data and research on how the death penal­ty is oper­at­ing in the United States. The 9^th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, orga­nized by ECPM (Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort) and host­ed by the French Republic, runs June 30 through July 2 at the Maison de la Radio et de la Musique in…

Florida exe­cut­ed Dusty Ray Spencer on June 25, 2026, mak­ing him the old­est per­son put to death in the state since the rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976. Mr. Spencer, 74, was the ninth per­son exe­cut­ed in Florida in 2026, fol­low­ing a record of 19 exe­cu­tions in 2025. The state has sched­uled two exe­cu­tions for July: Dennis Sochor, 74, is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on July 14 for the 1981 mur­der of Patricia Gifford in Broward County; Dominick Occhicone, 80, is…