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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.

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DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic

DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic

In 1993, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights con­duct­ed hear­ings on what was then a rel­a­tive­ly unknown ques­tion: How sig­nif­i­cant was the risk that inno­cent peo­ple were being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in the United States. That research — under­tak­en before the avail­abil­i­ty of the inter­net — uncov­ered 48 cas­es in which a wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed per­son had been released from death row…

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DPIC Special Reports

Jun 16, 2023

Doomed to Repeat: The Legacy of Race in Tennessee’s Contemporary Death Penalty

Best prac­tices for exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols may change, but the state can­not change the his­to­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and how the lega­cies of racial injus­tice influ­ence its mod­ern cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment scheme.This report explores the cur­rent issues with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Tennessee through a his­tor­i­cal lens, trac­ing the ori­gins of the use of the death…

Doomed to Repeat: The Legacy of Race in Tennessee's Contemporary Death Penalty

DPIC Year-End Reports

Dec 16, 2022

The Death Penalty in 2022: Year End Report

Note: In March 2023, DPIC learned of one addi­tion­al death sen­tence that was imposed in 2022: Leo Boatman, a white male defen­dant, was sen­tenced to death on November 9, 2022 in Bradford County, Florida, for the mur­der of Billy Chapman, a white male

DPIC Special Reports

Oct 14, 2022

Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty

Furthermore, Oklahoma’s planned exe­cu­tions are sched­uled to move for­ward despite evi­dence that there are seri­ous prob­lems with Oklahoma’s death penal­ty that the state has done lit­tle to address. Death penal­ty cas­es in Oklahoma have gar­nered sig­nif­i­cant media atten­tion in recent years, pro­vid­ing the pub­lic with tan­gi­ble exam­ples of sys­temic issues…

Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty

DPIC Year-End Reports

Dec 16, 2021

The Death Penalty in 2021: Year End Report

Key Findings Virginia becomes 23rd state, and first in the South, to abol­ish the death penal­ty Seventh con­sec­u­tive year with few­er than 30 exe­cu­tions and 50 new death sen­tences New study finds one exon­er­a­tion for every 8.3 exe­cu­tions Federal exe­cu­tion spree ends, new admin­is­tra­tion halts all fed­er­al exe­cu­tions and announces pol­i­cy review

The Death Penalty in 2021: Year End Report