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
JULY 21, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Do all victims’ family members support the death penalty?
JULY 10, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Mid-Year Review: New Death Sentences Low, Increase in Executions
Death Penalty Information Center analysis
JULY 9, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Catholic Church and capital punishment in the United States
Austin Sarat, Amherst College (Massachusetts)
JULY 8, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - ACLU Report Shows How Death Penalty Jury Selection Discriminates
Against Black Americans, Women, and People of Faith
JULY 7, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Florida. Ryan Cole formally sentenced to death
JUNE 5, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Firing squad, electric chair, nitrogen gas, injection: US expands execution methods
MAY 31, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Trump pardons Larry Hoover, notorious drug kingpins
Even as he escalates U.S. drug war rhetoric
MAY 25, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - The Rev. Jeff Hood nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Has witnessed 9 executions
MAY 7, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Victims’ Families Remain Divided on Federal Death Penalty
MAY 2, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Illinois. Former Gov. George Ryan Dies at 91
He cleared death row in 2003
MAY 2, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Death Row USA Spring 2025
2067 persons on death row as April 1, 2025
APRIL 29, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Guantanamo's Prosecutors will appeal the torture decision
although they lost a similar appeal this year
APRIL 17, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Who are the death row executioners?
Disgraced doctors, suspended nurses and drunk drivers
APRIL 11, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Military Judge Throws Out Sept. 11 Case Confession as Obtained Through Torture
The case of Ammar al-Baluchi
APRIL 1, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Federal prosecutors to seek death penalty for Luigi Mangione
In UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing
MARCH 28, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - GOP lawmakers in 10 states introduce bills to treat abortion as homicide
MARCH 13, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Does the “minor age” really end at 18?
What Experts are Saying About Emerging Adult Behavioral Development
- MARCH 11, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri Signs Plea Offer
One of the guantamo trials. The unknown of political reaction
MARCH 11, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - New report, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025
Nearly 2 million people incarcerated in the U.S.
- FEBRUARY 21, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Will Luigi Mangione face death penalty?
FEBRUARY 13, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - ‘Warden, I am ready’: documentary on the death penalty as seen from the point of view of a victim's son
- FEBRUARY 7, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Sept. 11 Plea Deal Includes Gag Order on C.I.A. Torture Secrets
FEBRUARY 3, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - List of the 26 death sentences of 2024
FEBRUARY 1, 2025United StatesDEATH BY PUNISHMENTUSA - 194.000 persons serving life sentences
A study by The Sentencing Project
JANUARY 29, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - The Death Penalty in 2024
New Monthly Podcast from the DPIC
JANUARY 24, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Former death row prisoners may be heading to Florence, Colorado
The ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’
JANUARY 22, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Trump suggests state death penalty for those commuted by Biden. Is that possible?
"Highly unlikely", legal experts say
JANUARY 21, 2025OklahomaDEATH PENALTYUSA - Supreme Court Makes Historic Decision
Rules in Favor of Woman on Death Row, Confirming Admission of Prejudicial, Gendered Evidence Can Violate Due Process Rights
- JANUARY 20, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Agrees to Use of Disputed Confession for Life Sentence
Accused 9/11 Mastermind
- JANUARY 20, 2025United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Among First-Day Executive Orders, Trump Issues Order on the Death Penalty