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
- 1,549
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 1,549 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
MAY 1, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - (Military). Sept. 11 Trial Plea Negotiations Still Underway at Guantánamo Bay
APRIL 22, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Prosecutor Says Sept. 11 Suspects Can Be Held Past War Crimes Sentence
APRIL 16, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Binding Assurances that Julian Assange Will Not Face the Death Penalty
APRIL 2, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Trump calls for cop killers to get ‘mandatory’ death sentence
in wake of slain NYPD Detective Jonathan Diller
- MARCH 26, 2024United KingdomDEATH PENALTY
UNITED KINGDOM - Assange can’t be extradited until US rules out death penalty
MARCH 25, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - The National Registry of Exonerations published its 2023 report
153 exonerations last year, 4 from death row
MARCH 11, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Top US Nitrogen Gas Producers Ban Use in Executions
MARCH 1, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYEUROPEAN UNION - Statement on the latest executions in US
FEBRUARY 29, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - 61 botched executions since 1977
The last one yesterday, in Idaho, against Thomas Creech
FEBRUARY 24, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Trump Ally Charlie Kirk Suggests Children Should Watch Public Executions
JANUARY 23, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Alabama. Dissent rises against looming ‘experimental’ execution of Kenneth Smith
JANUARY 12, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - U.S. to Seek Death for Payton Gendron
Biden thus contradicts his electoral promises
JANUARY 5, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - U.S. the Only G7 Country to Use Capital Punishment in 2023
United States and Japan are the only two retentionist countries among the Group of Seven leading industrialized democracies (G7). But Japan did not carry out any executions in 2023
JANUARY 3, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - UN experts alarmed for execution by nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama
Execution of K.E. Smith set for January 25
JANUARY 2, 2024United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Alabama. Warden approves spiritual plan for January execution of K.E. Smith
DECEMBER 7, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - DPIC 2023 Year End Report
24 executions and 21 new death sentences in 2023
DECEMBER 4, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - The Innocence Project helped exonerate 9 people in 2023
A list of these cases
NOVEMBER 22, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - BJS released its latest report for the year 2021
2,382 people were under sentence of death in 2021
NOVEMBER 13, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - U.S. Army Overturns the 1917 Convictions of 110 Black Soldiers
That Resulted in the Execution of 19
NOVEMBER 6, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - POLL: Americans Believe the Death Penalty Is Applied Unfairly
- OCTOBER 29, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - DEATH BY INCARCERATION: reform advocates at un call for end to "the other death penalty"
This year's Human Rights Committee review of the US shone a light on "the other death penalty" – death by incarceration
- OCTOBER 24, 2023AlabamaDEATH PENALTY
USA - Use of Nitrogen Hypoxia Could Endanger Spiritual Advisors and Prison Staff
Upcpming execution in Alabama
SEPTEMBER 21, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Military. Ramzi Bin al Shibh formally deeclared incompetent
SEPTEMBER 19, 2023IranDEATH PENALTYIRAN - Prisoners'swap: 5 Americans and 6 billions for 5 Iranians
SEPTEMBER 15, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Pharmaceutical multinationals further restrict lethal injections
- SEPTEMBER 13, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA – MILITARY: TOP MILITARY COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE FOR EX-SOLDIER WHO KILLED 13 IN MASS SHOOTING AT TEXAS BASE
A top military appellate court has upheld the death sentence given to a former Army officer who killed more than a dozen people in a mass shooting 14 years ago at one of the largest bases in the country.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Military. Death penalty upheld for Nidal Hasan
Who killed 13 in base shooting
SEPTEMBER 6, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Biden rejects some plea deal conditions for 9/11 suspects
They could still escape death penalty
- AUGUST 23, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Plea negotiations could mean 9/11 defendants will not face the death penalty
The Pentagon has advised families of some of the thousands killed
AUGUST 20, 2023United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - New Restorative Justice Webpage
DPIC explains the basics of restorative justice