Death Penalty Information Center

Xavier Becerra, the Democratic front-run­ner in California’s 2026 guber­na­to­r­i­al race, has pledged to extend Governor Gavin Newsom’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions if elect­ed in November. This is a marked shift from his pre­vi­ous record as the state’s attor­ney gen­er­al, when his office defend­ed cap­i­tal con­vic­tions and pur­sued new death sen­tences. While in office, A...

A foren­sic DNA ana­lyst whose tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny helped secure the 2002 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Ronald ​“Jeffery” Prible has now dis­avowed that tes­ti­mo­ny, adding new weight to Mr. Prible’s long-stand­ing inno­cence claim in a case marked by seri­ous alle­ga­tions of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. In an August 28 dec­la­ra­tion filed as part of con­tin­ued ef...

In a September 2, 2026, op-ed pub­lished in the *Topeka Capital-Journal*, Roger Werholtz, who served as Kansas Secretary of Corrections from 2003 to 2010, calls on Governor Laura Kelly to com­mute the sen­tences of the nine men on Kansas’ death row to life with­out parole. Writing as a for­mer cor­rec­tions offi­cial with expe­ri­ence in both Kansas and Colorado, Mr. Werholtz no...

On August 21, 2026, Japan hanged Sunao Takami for the killing of five peo­ple. The exe­cu­tion is not only the first of the year for the nation but also the first car­ried out under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s gov­ern­ment. Aside from the United States, Japan is the only oth­er G7 coun­try to retain use of the death penal­ty. In 2009, Mr. Takami was con­vict­ed of set­tin...

In 2025, the United States exe­cut­ed 47 peo­ple, the high­est total in over fif­teen years, while pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty fell to a fifty-year low and juries reject­ed death sen­tences in a major­i­ty of cap­i­tal tri­als. That same year, Pakistan held 3,394 peo­ple on death row — one of the largest con­demned pop­u­la­tions in the world — while main­tain­ing a ...