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 1, 1999United StatesDEATH PENALTY
The pace of USA executions is on the rise, pushed by...
The pace of USA executions is on the rise, pushed by laws passed earlier this decade that limit appeals
- JANUARY 1, 1999United StatesDEATH PENALTY
In the USA there are 38 retentionist states (of which...
In the USA there are 38 retentionist states (of which at least 35 have very active death penalty dockets), 11 circuits with many federal district courts in each circuit all handling death penalty cases, all making law, some in conflict with others
- JANUARY 1, 1999United StatesDEATH PENALTY
Capital punishment in America is some sort of idiosyncratic...
Capital punishment in America is some sort of idiosyncratic lottery
- JANUARY 1, 1999United StatesDEATH PENALTY
In 1999, five foreign nationals - a Thai, a Filipino,...
In 1999, five foreign nationals - a Thai, a Filipino, a Canadian and two German brothers - were executed in the United States
- JANUARY 1, 1999United StatesDEATH PENALTY
The results of two new studies underscore the continuing...
The results of two new studies underscore the continuing injustice of racism in the application of the death penalty
- JANUARY 1, 1999United StatesDEATH PENALTY
With 84 inmates released from death rows because of...
With 84 inmates released from death rows because of innocence, growing doubts about how the death penalty is applied have prompted some state lawmakers to call for a moratorium on executions to study whether the system is working fairly
- JANUARY 1, 1999United StatesDEATH PENALTY
A new dialogue about the death penalty appears to...
A new dialogue about the death penalty appears to be under way inside the Supreme Court