Recently released by the US Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, this report presents capital punishment data for 1997 as well as preliminary data on executions in 1998. The report finds that in 1997, 3,335 men and women were on death row in 34 states, and during the year, seventeen states executed 74 prisoners -- all male -- with half of the executions occurring in Texas. Tabular...

The US Department of Justice has released statistics detailing the characteristics of people under the sentence of death as of December 31, 1998. In addition to summarizing the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during 1998, the report provides "data on offenders' gender, race, Hispanic origin, education, marital status, age at time of arrest for capital offense, legal...

The US Department of Justice has released statistics detailing the characteristics of people under a sentence of death as of December 31, 1999. In addition to summarizing the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during 1999, the report provides "data on offenders' gender, race, education, marital status, age at time of arrest for capital offense, legal status at time of...

This week's In The News focuses on capital punishment in Texas. The eight resources discussed provide commentary, analysis, news, and statistics. In the last six weeks, the state of Texas has executed four prisoners by lethal injection and postponed three more scheduled executions because of legalities. The postponements include the 36th judicial re-evaluation of a complex murder conviction and...

This major investigative series from the Tribune documents hundreds of homicide cases where innocent people were sent to jail, some to Death Row, because of the "egregious misconduct" of prosecutors, usually in the form of suppressing evidence or using evidence that they knew to be false. The study begins in 1963, when the Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland forbad prosecutors from...

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a nonprofit organization operating out of Washington, DC, prepares analytical reports for the media, the public, and Congress on issues concerning capital punishment. Their fact-filled, frequently updated site supplies a wealth of full-text reports, briefs, and statistics examining all aspects of capital punishment. Topic sections analyze death penalty...