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
MARCH 14, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - The latest edition of "Death Row USA" Drusa has been published
State Death Rows Drop Below 2,400 For First Time Since 1990
MARCH 6, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Feds appeal reversal in Alfonso Rodriguez death penalty case
MARCH 4, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Supreme Court upholds death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
FEBRUARY 25, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Nominated to U.S. Supreme Court
FEBRUARY 23, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Poll Finds Bipartisan Opposition to Use of the Death Penalty as It is Actually Administered
FEBRUARY 15, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Department of Justice Rejects Use of Evidence Obtained by Torture in Guantánamo Case
FEBRUARY 9, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA -Published "Death Row USA" updated to October 1, 2021
2,455 people on death row
JANUARY 27, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Capital Punishment, 2020 Statistics
Death Row Below 2,500 First Time in 29 Years
- JANUARY 9, 2022United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Guantánamo Bay, 20 years on
DECEMBER 31, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Death Penalty Information Center: Year End Report 2021
Virginia abolishes, 11 executions, 19 new death sentences
DECEMBER 29, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Published the latest edition of "Death Row USA" updated to July 1, 2021
Fewest Death-Sentenced Prisoners in Three Decades
DECEMBER 20, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - 2021 Year End Report from the Death Penalty Information Center
11 executions and 18 new death sentences in 1 year
DECEMBER 18, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - 2021 Gallup Poll: Public Support for Capital Punishment Remains at Half-Century Low
OCTOBER 28, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Published the latest edition of Death Row Usa
Updated to April 1, 2021
OCTOBER 21, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Azibo Aquart sentenced to life in prison
Death sentence overturned in 2018
SEPTEMBER 22, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - In the Extreme: Women Serving Life Without Parole and Death Sentences
A report by the Alice Project
SEPTEMBER 22, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Homicides increased by 29% in 2020, the year of Covid, but also of Black Lives Matter.
2021 still increasing
- SEPTEMBER 20, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Appeals Panel Overturns Army Judge’s Ruling on Torture
At the Guantánamo war cour
SEPTEMBER 8, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Texas. U.S. Supreme Court Stays Texas Execution of John Henry Ramirez
Agrees to Review Contours of the Right to Religious Exercise in the Execution Chamber
SEPTEMBER 1, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Published the latest edition of "Death Row USA" updated to January 1, 2021
2,528 people on death rows
SEPTEMBER 1, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Massachusetts 8th Graders Push to Exonerate Woman Sentenced to Death
In 1683, in Salem Witchcraft Hysteria
AUGUST 27, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - California. First opinion in favor of parole for Sirhan Sihran
Man who assassinated Robert F Kennedy
- JULY 21, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - Chief Guantánamo Prosecutor Retires
JULY 1, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Attorney General Merrick Garland suspends federal executions
"Not enough"
JULY 1, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - DPIC 2021 Mid-Year Review
Continuing Record-Low Death Penalty Usage in First Half of Year
JUNE 25, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - 'Capital Punishment 2019' Reports Number on Death Row Down
Average Time on Death Row Approaches 19 Years
JUNE 25, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Pittsburgh synagogue requests no death penalty for Robert Bowers
Killer of 11 of its members
- JUNE 16, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTY
USA - White House Reasserts Opposition to Death Penalty
After the controversy over the Tsarnaev case
JUNE 15, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA - Biden’s Death Penalty Reversal in the Boston Bomber Case
Follows in Trump's footsteps
JUNE 15, 2021United StatesDEATH PENALTYUSA Most atheists and agnostics oppose the death penalty
Unlike other U.S. religious groups