United States
Death penalty and prisoners' rights · Archive since 1999
Data card
- Legal status
- Retentionist
- Executions recorded in 2026
- 16
- Executions recorded in 2025
- 47
- First news item in the archive
- JANUARY 1, 1999 · The pace of USA executions is on the rise, pushed by...
- News items in the archive
- 1,537
Source: Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026.
United States is classified as Retentionist in the Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026. In 2026 the association recorded 16 executions in the country, against 47 the year before. The archive holds 1,537 news items on United States, from 1999 to today.
In the United States the death penalty is a matter for the individual states as well as the federal government: some have abolished it, some retain it without applying it, and some carry out executions regularly. The prevailing method is lethal injection, and several states have reintroduced alternative methods.
Its death rows are among the most populated in the world and the wait often lasts decades. The debate concerns the availability of the drugs, wrongful convictions and the conditions of isolation. The archive follows executions, stays, commutations and court decisions, state by state.
Latest news
JANUARY 10, 2026United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - California. Lush Cosmetics Launches Campaign to End Death Penalty
JANUARY 6, 2026United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - 2025 Was Not a Good Year for Clemency in Capital Cases
- JANUARY 5, 2026United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Florida. Nonunanimous death penalty verdicts upheld by Supreme Court
JANUARY 5, 2026United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Florida. Marcelle Waldon, 42, Black, sentenced to death
JANUARY 2, 2026United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Contradictions in the war on drugs
On the (drone) killings of drug couriers
JANUARY 1, 2026United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Oklahoma. Why Is Richard Glossip Still in Jail?
DECEMBER 31, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - The Guardian looks on American death penalty
- DECEMBER 30, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Impending/scheduled executions
DECEMBER 30, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Florida. TFDP's Year End Report: 19 executions, 5 death sentences
DECEMBER 28, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Georgia. Georgia Stacey Humphreys' execution warrant expired
DECEMBER 18, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Arizona. Cleophus Cooksey, 43, Black, sentenced to death
DECEMBER 15, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - DPIC Year End Report 2025
More executions than new death sentences
DECEMBER 11, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Poll: Majority of U.S. Catholics support death penalty
Despite Catechism
DECEMBER 9, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Roundup of 2025 Legislation to Modify Execution Protocols
DECEMBER 5, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Col. Jonathan Vaughn to Lead Guantánamo Defense Teams
NOVEMBER 20, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Trump would like to sentence parliamentarians who oppose him to death for ‘treason’
NOVEMBER 19, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - ACLU Report Exposes Systemic Failures in Death Penalty System
"Fatal Flaws"
NOVEMBER 18, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYIRAN - Another Iranian–American Imprisoned: Afarin Mohajer
NOVEMBER 7, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Prisoners off death row protest transfer to supermax lockup
NOVEMBER 6, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - States’ death penalty policies are heading in sharply different directions
NOVEMBER 5, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Gallup poll: 52% of Americans in favor of the death penalty. 41% amongst younger Americans
OCTOBER 10, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Florida. Jose Soto-Escalera sentenced to death
SEPTEMBER 20, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Luigi Mangione’s lawyers urge judge to block death penalty
Because of actions that had violated his due process rights
- SEPTEMBER 13, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - What’s Behind the Execution Surge of 2025?
SEPTEMBER 5, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - A Conservative against the death penalty
Demetrius Minor, director of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty
AUGUST 26, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Trump Calls for Death Penalty in All D.C. Murder Cases
Washington D.C. abolished death penalty in 1981
AUGUST 16, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - It is increasingly clear that the Guantanamo trials are impossible
The families of the victims are now resigned to this fact
AUGUST 1, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Florida Derrick Clay sentenced to death
JULY 28, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Study: Do All Religions Support the Death Penalty?
JULY 23, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Ronald Tabak, a pillar of the fight against the death penalty in the United States, has died