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{{Short description|US non-profit organization}}
{{Infobox organization
| image =
| predecessor =
| formation = {{start date and age|1990}}
| type = Non-profit organization
| purpose = Information on issues concerning [[capital punishment]]
| headquarters = [[Washington, D.C.]]
| leader_title = Executive director
| leader_name =
| leader_title2 = Deputy Director
| leader_name2 =
| budget =
| name = Death Penalty Information Center
| membership =
| website = {{URL|https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/}}
}}

The '''Death Penalty Information Center''' ('''DPI''') is a non-profit organization based in [[Washington, D.C.]], that focuses on disseminating studies and reports related to the [[death penalty]]. Founded in 1990, DPI is primarily focused on the application of [[capital punishment in the United States]].

DPI does not take a formal position on the death penalty but is critical of how it is administered.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska/company-nebraska-shouldn-t-have-gotten-death-penalty-drug/article_803434a9-6391-5f2a-b065-acd557b2499f.html |title=Grant Schulte, Associated Press, Company: Nebraska shouldn't have gotten death penalty drug |work=[[Lincoln Journal Star]] |date=April 13, 2017 |access-date=September 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170905020015/http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska/company-nebraska-shouldn-t-have-gotten-death-penalty-drug/article_803434a9-6391-5f2a-b065-acd557b2499f.html |archive-date=September 5, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/us/alabama-inmate-hopes-to-dodge-death-for-an-eighth-time.html |title=Alan Blinder, Alabama Inmate, 75, Hopes to Dodge Death for an Eighth Time |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=May 24, 2017 |access-date=September 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170905015746/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/us/alabama-inmate-hopes-to-dodge-death-for-an-eighth-time.html |archive-date=September 5, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/effort-expands-to-boost-punishment-for-police-killers-1496840401 |title=Zusha Elinson and Beth Reinhard, Effort Expands to Boost Punishment for Police Killers |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |date=June 8, 2017 |access-date=September 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170905020139/https://www.wsj.com/articles/effort-expands-to-boost-punishment-for-police-killers-1496840401 |archive-date=September 5, 2017 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> As a result, some have referred to it as an anti-death penalty organization.<ref>{{cite web|title=Three States Accounted For 80 Percent Of Executions in 2014 |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/18/dpic-report_n_6347688.html |work=[[The Huffington Post]] |access-date=December 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220000330/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/18/dpic-report_n_6347688.html |archive-date=December 20, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Latzer |first=Barry |date=October 27, 2010 |title=Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RDQWgxOdon0C |publisher=Elsevier |page=21 |isbn=978-0123820259}}</ref> According to a pro-death penalty prosecutor, DPI is "probably the single most comprehensive and authoritative internet resource on the death penalty" but "makes absolutely no effort to present any pro-death penalty views."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm |title=1000+ Death Penalty Links |work=The ClarkCounty Prosecuting Attorney |access-date=September 5, 2017}}</ref> However, the DPI's award-winning Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty includes a discussion of commonly raised arguments both for and against the death penalty.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/node/5 |title=Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty|access-date=July 1, 2022}}</ref>

In June 2022, on the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in ''[[Furman v. Georgia]]'', DPI released its Death Penalty Census, which covers the period from 1972 to January 1, 2021. The database was the result of a years-long effort.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Death Penalty Census Codebook |url=https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/Death-Penalty-Census-Codebook.pdf}}</ref> The Death Penalty Census will be updated periodically, includes death sentences imposed in U.S. state, federal, and military courts, and includes numerous details about each case.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/database/sentences |title=Death Penalty Census Database|access-date=June 29, 2022}}</ref>

==Personnel and funding==
The original executive director, Michael A. Kroll, was succeeded by Richard Dieter in 1992. Robert Dunham in March became executive in March 2015 and served until January 2023. In May 2023, Robin M. Maher took on the role.

David J. Bradford was president of the board until succeeded by George H. Kendall, who was in turn succeeded by [[Phoebe C. Ellsworth]] in 2024.

DPI has received funding from a number of American philanthropic foundations. In 2009, the organization also received funding from the [[European Union]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/what/human-rights/documents/contracts_table_2009_for_publication_for_website_en.pdf|title=List of Projects financed under EIDHR|work=[[European Commission]]|access-date=August 20, 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811045340/http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/what/human-rights/documents/contracts_table_2009_for_publication_for_website_en.pdf|archive-date=August 11, 2011}}</ref> DPI has been ranked among the Top Criminal Justice Nonprofits by Philanthropedia.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/about/about-us/ |title=About Us |work=Death Penalty information Center|access-date=August 9, 2019 }}</ref>

==Reports==
DPI releases an annual report on the death penalty,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/2022YrEnd.pdf |title=The Death Penalty in 2022: Year End Report |work=Death Penalty Information Center |access-date=February 1, 2023}}</ref> highlighting significant developments and trends and featuring the latest statistics. The center also produces in-depth reports on various issues related to the death penalty such as arbitrariness, costs, innocence, and race.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/reports |title=Reports |work=Death Penalty information Center|access-date=September 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170905015624/https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/reports |archive-date=September 5, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> In November 2018, it issued a major report on lethal-injection secrecy entitled, Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://files.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/pdf/SecrecyReport-2.f1560295685.pdf |title=Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States |work=Death Penalty information Center|access-date=August 9, 2019 }}</ref> In September 2020, it issued a new report on race and the death penalty entitled, Enduring Injustice: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://files.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/reports/r/Enduring-Injustice-Race-and-the-Death-Penalty-2020.pdf |title=Enduring Injustice: The Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty |work=Death Penalty information Center|access-date=October 29, 2020 }}</ref> Associated Press described the report as "a history lesson in how lynchings and executions have been used in America and how discrimination bleeds into the entire criminal justice system. It traces a line from lynchings of old—killings outside the law—where Black people were killed in an effort to assert social control during slavery and Jim Crow, and how that eventually translated into state-ordered executions."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://apnews.com/article/discrimination-racial-injustice-united-states-archive-race-and-ethnicity-ded1f517a0fd64bf1d55c448a06acccc |title=Colleen Long, Report: Death penalty cases show history of racial disparity |work=Associated Press|date=15 September 2020 |access-date=September 15, 2020 }}</ref>

===Innocence List===
In 1993, the [[United States House Committee on the Judiciary]] asked DPI for assistance in identifying the risks that innocent people might be executed. That request led to the creation of DPI's Innocence List.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty-assessing-danger-mistaken-executions |title=Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing The Danger of Mistaken Executions |date=October 21, 1993 |work=Death Penalty Information Center |access-date=September 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170905020542/https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty-assessing-danger-mistaken-executions |archive-date=September 5, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> DPI has continued to update the list, which as of February 1, 2023, documented 190 exonerations of persons who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence-database |title=Innocence Database |work=Death Penalty Information Center |access-date=February 1, 2023}}</ref> The list does not include individuals who are innocent of the murder, but were involved in the crime in some lesser manner, or innocent prisoners who nonetheless pled guilty or no-contest to lesser crimes they did not commit in order to ensure their release from prison.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/additional-innocence-information |title=Additional Innocence Information |work=Death Penalty Information Center |access-date=September 5, 2017 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170905020931/https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/additional-innocence-information |archive-date=September 5, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In February 2021, DPI issued a Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic, analyzing the causes and demographics of the wrongful capital convictions and death sentences that had led to the then-185 death-row exonerations since 1973.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/dpic-special-reports/dpic-special-report-the-innocence-epidemic |title=DPI Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic |work=Death Penalty Information Center |access-date=July 1, 2022}}</ref> DPI found that these wrongful capital convictions had taken place in 118 different counties across 29 different states.

Writing for the ''[[National Review]]'' in 2002, [[Ramesh Ponnuru]] criticized the list for not differentiating between a person who was found innocent of the crime they were convicted of, and someone whose convictions were overturned on a technicality, though may have still committed the offence, noting that [[Jay C. Smith]] was on the list. Smith's convictions were overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct, and he could not be tried again due to [[double jeopardy]], though an appeals court still considered him to have committed the murders he was originally convicted of.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ponnuru |first1=Ramesh |title=Not So Innocent |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2002/01/not-so-innocent-ramesh-ponnuru/ |access-date=21 March 2025 |work=[[National Review]] |date=Jan 14, 2002}}</ref>

===Botched executions===
The DPI website contains a page devoted to U.S. executions that death-penalty experts have considered to have been "botched." This includes a statistical analysis by [[Amherst College]] Prof. [[Austin Sarat]], which found 276 executions between 1890 and 2010 that Sarat deemed to be botched. His definition of "botched" was an execution that deviated from the established execution protocol in a manner that "involv[ed] unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary agony for the prisoner or that reflect[ed] gross incompetence of the executioner."<ref name=botched>{{cite web |url=https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions |title=Botched Executions |work=Death Penalty Information Center |access-date=August 9, 2019 }}</ref> The page features a list and brief description of botched executions in the modern U.S. death-penalty era, which included 51 examples as of March 1, 2018.

In 2008, the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] heard [[oral argument]]s in ''[[Baze v. Rees]]'', a case challenging the three-drug cocktail used for many executions by [[lethal injection]]. The respondent's lawyer, Roy T. Englert, Jr., criticized DPI's botched executions list, on the grounds that a majority of the executions on it "did not involve the infliction of pain, but were only delayed by technical problems", such as difficulty in finding a suitable vein.<ref>[https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_07_5439/argument/ ''Baze v. Rees'' oral arguments].</ref> However, the list also contains cases of prisoners catching on fire in electric chair executions, a prisoner moaning and banging his head against a steel pole in a gas chamber execution carried out by a drunk executioner in Mississippi in 1983, and numerous instances of coughing, spasming, groaning, and gasping during executions.<ref name=botched/>

The majority and dissenting justices of the U.S. Supreme Court cited data on the DPI webpage a total of eight times—and in all three opinions—in the 2015 lethal injection case, ''[[Glossip v. Gross]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-7955_aplc.pdf |title=Glossip v. Gross}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ Death Penalty Information Center]
{{CapPun-US}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Capital punishment in the United States]]
[[Category:Organizations established in 1990]]
[[Category:1990 establishments in the United States]]
[[Category:Non-profit organizations based in Washington, D.C.]]

Death Penalty Information Center - Revision history

imported>Lightiggy: Removed redundant categories