research paper over death penalty

Death Penalty

The death penalty, known as capital punishment, is the government-sanctioned taking of a life as punishment for a crime. Read the overview below to gain an understanding of the issues surrounding the death penalty and explore the previews of additional articles highlighting diverse perspectives.

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Capital punishment.

"Capital Punishment." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection , Gale, 2023.

Capital punishment , also referred to as the  death penalty , has long been a feature of human society and has been used in the United States since the colonial era. Crimes punishable by death are called  capital offenses . Under US constitutional law, states have the right to apply their own criminal statutes including capital punishment. However, the death penalty remains a controversial political and legal issue in the United States. Supporters of capital punishment argue that it deters crime and provides ultimate justice for crime victims, particularly murder victims. Opponents counter that it is an immoral and costly practice that is particularly vulnerable to racial bias. It also carries the risk of wrongful execution. As of 2023, the death penalty had been abolished in twenty-three US states and the District of Columbia. In addition, governors in Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania had placed moratoriums on the death penalty that remained in effect.

PROS AND CONS OF ABOLISHING THE DEATH PENALTY

• The death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment's protection against "cruel and unusual punishment" by the state.
• With little evidence that capital punishment deters crime, it is a costly and ineffective use of public resources.
• Abolishing the death penalty is the only way to prevent bias in its application and ensure that no person is executed by the government erroneously or unconstitutionally.
• The option to seek the death penalty is constitutional because the Fifth Amendment authorizes its application as long as "due process of law" has been followed.
• The death penalty provides immeasurable public benefit by discouraging people from committing capital offenses.
• Capital punishment enables the state to assert its authority over the people and serve in its role as the administrator of justice.

In addition to state laws, the federal government identifies about sixty crimes to which the death penalty could be applied. These offenses involve murder, treason, or committing another crime that results in death, such as kidnapping or aircraft piracy. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) authorizes federal death penalty cases, which are prosecuted in federal court. In 2020, following seventeen years without carrying out the penalty, the federal government executed ten people. In January 2021 the federal government executed Lisa Marie Montgomery, the first woman to receive such a punishment from the federal government in sixty-seven years. Despite this surge in federal executions in 2020, state executions reached their lowest number that year since 1991.

In states that still enforce capital punishment, lethal injection is the primary method of carrying out executions. Though their use is rare, secondary execution methods permitted by individual state laws include electrocution, gas inhalation, hanging, and firing squad. As of 2023, only three people in the United States have been executed by hanging since 1965, and only four people have faced a firing squad since 1960. Tennessee used electrocution in 2020. For federal offenses, the government uses the methods of execution authorized by the state in which the court imposes the punishment. In cases handled in states that have abolished capital punishment, the federal judge can designate a death-penalty state to carry out the execution.

Several nonprofit organizations work to end the use of capital punishment. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the nation's oldest anti–death penalty nonprofit organization, was founded in 1976 and focuses on ending the practice through mass organization, providing legal assistance, and educating the public. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992, focuses on providing legal services and DNA testing with the purpose of winning exoneration for wrongfully convicted prisoners. Exoneration occurs when a person's conviction is overturned. Between 1973 and 2023, at least 195 inmates on death row in the United States were exonerated.

DEVELOPMENT OF US DEATH PENALTY LAWS

The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution outlines conditions for trying individuals accused of capital crimes and states that no person "shall be deprived of life … without due process of law." The government is granted the authority to execute a person if certain conditions—such as arrest, indictment, and trial—have been met. The Eighth Amendment, however, prohibits the government from enforcing "cruel and unusual punishment," which several lawsuits have used successfully to challenge certain applications of capital punishment.

Through the Crimes Act of 1790, also referred to as the Federal Criminal Code of 1790, lawmakers of the newly independent United States granted federal judges the authority to impose the death sentence. By the 1800s, federal law not only permitted capital punishment but required it in cases involving certain crimes. This created a problem for juries that found a defendant guilty but did not believe the offense warranted a sentence of death. With no legal ability to impose a punishment other than execution, some juries chose to hand down verdicts of not guilty, a trial outcome known as  jury nullification .

Due in part to rising jury nullifications, which effectively allowed guilty criminals to be set free, state legislatures began to pass laws in 1838 that rejected mandatory application of the death penalty in favor of jury discretion in sentencing. The abolitionist movement to end capital punishment also influenced state legislatures. By the early 1900s, most states had adopted laws that allowed juries to apply either the death penalty or a sentence of life in prison.

Executions in the United States peaked during the 1930s at an average rate of 167 per year. Courts handed down death sentences fairly frequently until the 1960s when the practice began to face growing moral, legal, and political opposition. Critics cast doubt on its value as a crime deterrent and argued that the courts applied it inconsistently and unequally. Among other factors, scholars determined that the races of both the victim and the defendant often influenced sentencing. Despite comprising less than 15 percent of the US population, African Americans comprised more than half of the nearly four thousand people executed from 1930 to 1967. Facing increasing pressure to rule on the constitutionality of capital punishment law, an unofficial nationwide moratorium on executions began in 1968.

CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES

The Supreme Court ruled in  Furman v. Georgia  (1972) that the death penalty, as it was implemented, violated the Constitution. The court overturned the death sentence of William Furman, an African American man whose murder trial had lasted less than one day. The court found Furman's death sentence to be "cruel and unusual punishment." The ruling determined that the unequal and arbitrary application of the death penalty to African American defendants violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision required states to develop consistent legal standards for capital punishment to ensure that sentences matched the severity of offenses and did not cause undue pain and suffering. From 1972 to 1976, thirty-five US states revised their death penalty laws.

On July 2, 1976, the Supreme Court handed down five decisions in cases that originated in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas, collectively referred to as the July 2 cases, or by the name of the lead case,  Gregg v. Georgia . All cases involved ongoing state-level efforts to reform capital punishment laws. The court ruled that mandatory capital punishment laws were too rigid. However, the court also determined that the death penalty does not violate the Constitution, capital punishment serves as a practical deterrent, and retribution provides a justifiable basis for execution.

The court's rulings also indicated that inconsistent and racially biased death sentences could be prevented by holding two hearings: one to establish guilt and one to determine sentencing if found guilty. Most states authorized a system of allowing the jury to decide the guilty party's punishment, though some allowed judges to make the decision or retain the right to overrule the jury. These decisions allowed the reinstatement of state death penalty laws. The federal government lifted its capital punishment moratorium in 1988 but did not carry out another execution until 2001.

RESURGENCE IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

After the unofficial moratorium on capital punishment ended with the execution of Gary Gilmore in Utah in 1977, the execution rate remained low for an extended period. During the late 1970s, the Supreme Court handed down decisions that expanded defendants' rights in capital offense trials and ruled that capital punishment could not be imposed for the rape of an adult, limiting the death penalty to offenses of murder, treason, and the rape of a child. In the 1980s, the court ruled that the death penalty could not be applied to offenders under the age of sixteen or those deemed mentally incompetent. During the 1980s, more than half of all federal appeals in capital punishment cases resulted in death sentences being overturned.

In  McCleskey v. Kemp  (1987), the Supreme Court again confronted the issue of race and capital punishment. Warren McCleskey, a Black resident of Georgia, had been convicted of killing a white police officer in 1978 and sentenced to death. McCleskey's attorneys argued that his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated because his race made it statistically more likely that he would receive the death penalty. McCleskey's attorney cited a 1983 study, commonly referred to as the Baldus study, that determined African Americans in Georgia were 4.3 times more likely to receive death sentences for killing a white person than they were for killing another African American. Upon losing his Supreme Court appeal, McCleskey was executed in 1991.

In the years since the McCleskey ruling, opponents of capital punishment have continued to voice concerns about the role of racial bias in death penalty sentencing. The court's ruling is believed to have made proving racial discrimination more difficult. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), incarceration rates of racial minorities skyrocketed in the decade following the McCleskey decision. As of October 2023, Black defendants accounted for 34.1 percent of all people executed in the United States since 1976 and over 40 percent of the country's death row population despite making up just 13.6 percent of the general population.

During the 1990s, the Supreme Court issued several decisions that upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment and limited defendants' opportunities to have their cases reviewed. The number of executions performed annually began a steady rise during this decade. A total of sixteen executions were carried out in the United States in 1989. In 1999 state governments carried out ninety-eight executions, the highest number since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty.

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS

The 2001 execution of Timothy McVeigh, convicted for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, marked the first federal execution carried out since 1963, with drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza executed eight days later. After the execution of Louis Jones Jr. in 2003, no federal executions were scheduled until US Attorney General William Barr announced a return to the practice in 2019. One year after the announcement federal executions resumed, and ten prisoners were executed by the federal government in the last six months of 2020. An additional four federal prisoners were executed in January 2021, during the last weeks of Trump's presidency. His successor, Joe Biden, has pledged to end the federal death penalty and issued a federal moratorium on executions. As of late 2023, federal courts have not issued any death sentences during the Biden administration.

Opponents of the death penalty have also focused their arguments on the mental capacity of those found guilty of capital offenses. The Supreme Court ruled in  Atkins v. Virginia  (2002) that executing people with intellectual disabilities violated the Eighth Amendment but left the definition of intellectual disabilities up to individual states. In  Hall v. Florida  (2014), the Supreme Court found Florida's system of determining intellectual disability to be unconstitutional and handed down a similar ruling in  Moore v. Texas  (2017). In several cases in 2020 the Florida Supreme Court reversed existing protections afforded to inmates sentenced to death and overturned existing evidential and jury agreement standards for imposing the death penalty.

Between 2000 and 2020, with few exceptions, the number of state executions performed annually dropped each year, with the exceptions of 2017 and 2018. While eighty-five state executions were carried out in 2000, there were twenty-five in 2018 and twenty-two in 2019. Seven state executions took place in 2020, the lowest annual number of the twenty-first century as of late 2023. Though no federal executions had taken place under the Biden administration as of 2023, forty-one state executions took place during that period, with eighteen taking place in 2022 and at least twenty in 2023. Death penalty abolitionists have expressed frustration at the Biden administration's lack of progress on permanently ending capital punishment and the DOJ's upholding of previous federal death sentences.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS

• What factors do you think have historically had the greatest influence on capital punishment reform in the United States?
• Under what conditions, if any, do you think a court should sentence a person to death? Explain your answer.
• In your opinion, should pharmaceutical companies have the right to refuse to sell drugs for executions? Why or why not?

LETHAL INJECTION CONTROVERSIES

A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, the barbiturate anesthetic used in lethal injections, emerged in 2009 after the only pharmaceutical plant in the United States approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to manufacture the drug announced it was stopping production. The shortage resulted in the postponement of several scheduled executions. States could only acquire the drug by importing it from abroad, sometimes improperly. European drug manufacturers objected to capital punishment procedures, and the European Commission banned the export of drugs used in lethal injection procedures in 2011. Some states attempted to circumvent regulations, resulting in the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seizing drug supplies from prisons in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Other states sought to carry out their scheduled executions using experimental combinations of drugs. Officials in Oklahoma were found to have made significant errors in an execution in 2014 after authorizing the use of untested drugs supplied by undisclosed sources. A grand jury determined in 2016 that state officials had committed a long list of oversights and avoidable mistakes in carrying out executions. In 2017 officials in Arkansas came under criticism for expediting the schedule of eight executions by lethal injection before the state's supply of available drugs reached its expiration date. Four of the eight inmates were ultimately executed, while four received stays of execution.

Concerns over botched executions using untested lethal injection methods reached the US Supreme Court, which handed down its decision in  Bucklew v. Precythe  in April 2019. The split five-to-four ruling held that challenges to a state's method of execution due to claims of excessive pain must demonstrate that alternative methods exist that would cause less pain than the state-determined one. The majority decision reasoned that the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment does not equate to a guarantee of a painless execution. The dissenting opinion argued that the use of lethal injection in this case met the standards for an Eighth Amendment challenge previously established by the court itself.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lawyers for federal death-row inmates Dustin Higgs and Corey Johnson argued that their clients, both of whom tested positive for COVID-19, should not be subject to lethal injection. The attorneys suggested that the combination of COVID-19 infection with the flooding of the lungs caused by the execution drugs would cause suffering that amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment." Like earlier appeals in defense of the prisoners' lives, this argument proved ineffective. Both men were executed in Virginia in January 2021.

Two months after these executions, on March 24, 2021, Virginia governor Ralph Northam signed a bill that abolished the death penalty in the state. When signing the bill, Northam referenced the disproportionate use of the death penalty against Black men in the state and the 170 prisoners sentenced to death row who had been exonerated after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States. Virginia became the first state in the South to abolish the death penalty, leading some to believe others could follow.

In 2015, following several botched executions, the governments of Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma began to approve nitrogen hypoxia, in which the inmate dies by asphyxiation, as an execution method. In August 2023 Alabama became the first state to announce that it would use the method as it sought to schedule the execution of Kenneth Smith, whose first execution the state had botched the previous year.

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The Rhetoric of Abolition: Continuity and Change in the Struggle Against America’s Death Penalty, 1900-2010

This article traces the history of anti-death penalty arguments in three US states: Connecticut, Kansas, and Texas. The authors find that the rhetoric around abolition in these regions has been framed differently over time, with more recent arguments focusing on the relationship between wrongful convictions and executions.

Rare as Hens’ Teeth: The New Geography of the American Death Penalty

This article examines the imposition of death sentences by geographic locale in the United States. While death sentences have fallen across the country since the 1970s, the majority of executions that have taken place are attributable to a relatively small number of counties. The author considers reasons for the decline in capital punishment, as well as how geographical variance impacts the debate over execution as a fair and just punishment.

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A Reflection on Contemporary Issues Regarding the Death Penalty

The general trend in the use and application of the death penalty is an increasing movement toward abolition.

Talia Roitberg Harmon, PhD.

David Taylor, PhD.

Chelsea Henning

The general trend in the use and application of the death penalty is an increasing movement toward abolition. This is reflected in the repeal of state death penalty laws, state moratoriums, and the reduction in executions and death sentences. The nature of the death penalty debate has also changed in the past two decades. Radelet and Borg (2000) provided an exhaustive overview of the nature of the debate surrounding capital punishment. This comment updates and reflects on some of the crucial contemporary scholarship that has been done in the following six central areas: incapacitation, deterrence, caprice and racial bias, retribution, innocence and miscarriages of justice, and cost. The authors also consider emerging frames that are impacting the debate. The main conclusion is that current scholarship continues to have a significant impact on framing the debate as well as creating the potential for the eventual abolition of capital punishment in this country.

Capital punishment, death penalty, incapacitation, deterrence, racial bias, retribution, innocence

INTRODUCTION

The state of South Carolina in 2022, which had not executed a person in more than ten years, was scheduled to execute Richard Moore and Brad Sigmon via firing squad. Both men have received their third stays of execution while the South Carolina Supreme Court reviews the constitutionality of the firing squad and electric chair as methods of execution (DPIC, 2022a). Two years earlier, after a decades-long hiatus, the federal death penalty had been resurrected by the Trump Administration for a brief six-month period (July 2020 – January 2021), resulting in the executions of 13 death row inmates. These examples are counter to the general trend of using capital punishment in the United States. Contemporary trends provide growing tendencies toward opposition and abolition. Public opinion polls illustrate the volatility in the application of the death penalty, and the lack of a shared and consistent national consensus when it comes to capital punishment.

One year after the 50 th anniversary of Furman v. Georgia (1972), the landmark case where the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional due to its arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory application 1 ; it is appropriate and timely to revisit and update Michael Radelet and Marian Borg’s 2000 seminal article, “The Changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates.” Both globally and here in the United States, some aspects of the debate have remained the same; however, much has also changed in the capital punishment landscape over the past 23 years.

As of the end of 2022, there were 2364 men and 50 women on death rows in 27 states and two federal jurisdictions (NAACP, 2022; DPIC, 2022b). This is down from approximately 3500 men and 50 women on death rows in 38 states and two federal jurisdictions in mid-1999 (see Radelet & Borg, 2000). In addition, there have been 804 executions in the past two decades that have resulted in a total of 1,565 executions since 1976 (DPIC, 2023).

The general trend in the use of the death penalty illustrates a steady and consistent movement toward abolition. This inclination can be categorized by a precipitous drop in executions and court ordered death sentences (DPIC, 2022b; McCord & Harmon, 2017 & 2019; Steiker & Steiker, 2020). For example, McCord & Harmon (2017) documented: “death sentences [have] plunged from 310 in 1994 to 73 in 2014—an astonishing 76% decline” (p. 2). Additionally, this number has consistently decreased since 2014 to 18 death sentences per year in 2020 and 2021 and 20 in 2022 (DPIC 2023). Furthermore, states have moved toward repeal of their death penalty laws (DPIC, 2019a), or have placed moratoriums on executions by governors (DPIC, 2019b).

Since 2000, eleven states have abolished the death penalty, bringing the total number of states without the death penalty to twenty-three (See Table 1). In addition, three states have placed gubernatorial moratoria on the death penalty since 2000 (DPIC, 2019b). In 2021, Virginia became the latest state, and the first of the traditional southern states, to abolish capital punishment (DPIC, 2021a). 2

Table 1: State-by-state death penalty status as of 2023. (Adapted from DPIC Data)

Worldwide, since 2000, more than thirty countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes (DPIC, 2022c) bringing the total number of countries that have abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes to 108. Fifty-five countries still retain the death penalty (Amnesty International, 2022a). 3 Tables 2-5 represent a current list of all abolitionist and retentionist countries. Most of the countries that abolished the death penalty did so due to a consensus that the practice violates human rights and international law (Amnesty International, 2022b). Mathias (2013) also found that aside from a human rights perspective, the predominant religion in the nation-state was significantly related to abolition of the death penalty. More specifically, Catholic nation-states were more likely than Muslim nation-states to abolish the death penalty.

Table Description automatically generated

Table 2: Abolitionist countries for all crime. (Adapted from Amnesty International data)

Table 4: Abolitionist countries in practice. (Adapted from Amnesty International data)

Table 5: Retentionist countries. (Adapted from Amnesty International data)

Gallup polls since the late 1990’s has indicated a significant decline in support of capital punishment for those convicted of first-degree murder. A recent Gallup poll establishes stability during the past six years with approximately 55% of Americans supporting it (Gallup Inc., 2022). Notably, since 2019, most Americans support life without parole (LWOP) over capital punishment for the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1985 (Gallup Inc., 2022; DPIC, 2020).

Radelet and Borg (2000) provided a comprehensive summary of the debate and the primary issues of concern where social science research has made an impact. The present analysis provides an update and extends their analysis since the time of their publication. As noted above, substantial consideration has been given to social concerns during the past 22 years. These have necessitated an update of the issues to provide a reflection on the contemporary scholarship that has been done in the six areas that these pioneering scholars identified as central in the debate. This is crucial to determine what has shifted and what has remained stable over time. Key central issues examined are incapacitation, deterrence, caprice and racial bias, retribution, innocence and miscarriages of justice, and cost. The main argument of this article is that the current scholarship has continued to have a significant impact on framing the national debate as well as creating the potential for the eventual demise of capital punishment in this country.

STEADY PROGRESS TOWARD ABOLITION IN THE UNITED STATES

Scholars have hypothesized numerous factors to account for the recent significant downward shift toward abolition: increase in costs (Steiker & Steiker, 2010), lethal injection drug shortages and botches (Harmon et al., 2020; Steiker & Steiker, 2020; Sarat 2022), wrongful convictions (Hicks et al., 2021; Wu, 2021; EJI, 2022; Norris & Mullinix, 2019), racial bias (EJI, 2022; Garrett et al., 2017; Baumgartner et al., 2015; Cholbi & Madva, 2018; VIJ, 2021; Steiker & Steiker, 2015; Ulmer et al., 2021), increased professionalism and improved trial-level capital representation, a significant drop in public support (Gallup Inc., 2022; Steiker & Steiker, 2020), and, most recently, COVID-19 (Amnesty International, 2021; Chammah & Blakinger, 2020).

The vast improvement in defense lawyers’ representation of capital defendants may also contribute to prosecutors’ willingness to forgo capital prosecutions which in turn, also may enhance the cost of capital cases. Moreover, public opinion from 2000-2017 showed a consistent trajectory downward from 65% to 54% in favor of capital punishment and that percentage has remained stable through 2022. Although there remains a majority of Americans who continue to support capital punishment, the trend appears to be approaching more of a “50-50 split” (Gallup, Inc., 2022).

PUBLIC OPINION

P ublic support for the death penalty has significantly declined in the previous 20 years. In the most recent Gallup poll on Americans’ attitudes about capital punishment, conducted in October 2022, 54% of Americans stated that they were in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder. This is down from 66% in 2000 and represents the lowest level of support for the death penalty since just prior to the Supreme Court’s Furman v. Georgia decision. In the last 20 years, support for the death penalty peaked at 70% from 2002-2003 but declined to 55% in 2017 and has remained steady at that level ever since (Gallup Inc., 2022). Still, it has yet to dip below the 50% mark to allow opponents to proclaim that more Americans oppose the death penalty than support it.

When faced with the option of life imprisonment with absolutely no possibility of parole (LWOP), public support for the death penalty drops considerably. In 2019, when the question of LWOP over the death penalty was posed, 60% of respondents chose life imprisonment as the better penalty for murder. This represents an increase of 23 percentage points from (February) 2000 when only 37% chose life imprisonment. This steady and rather swift decline contrasts with the 15-year period from 1985 until 2000 when the choice of life imprisonment varied only slightly, from a low of 29% to a high of 38% 4 % (DPIC, 2021g; Gallup Inc., 2022).

Other examples of this trend occurred when a record 62 percent of Californians indicated that they prefer LWOP over the death penalty as a punishment for murder (Public Policy Institute of California, 2019). Furthermore, interesting results have been reported in the traditionally stalwart states of Texas and Florida. A recent poll of registered Texas voters found that support for the death penalty, while still strong, has fallen significantly over the past decade. A University of Texas/Texas Tribune internet survey of 1,200 registered voters conducted from April 16-22, 2021, found that 63% say they favor keeping the death penalty for people convicted of violent crimes. The recent poll is a significant decline from 75% in February 2015 and 78% when the poll started in 2010 (DPIC, 2021b). Florida provides another illustration of this phenomenon. A poll in 2016 found that 62% of Floridians favor some form of life in prison for convicted murderers, while only 35% of Floridians prefer the death penalty for convicted murderers (DPIC, 2016 ).

Scholars have hypothesized various factors that have led to the drop in public support including increased media attention devoted to wrongful convictions and high-profile exonerations, as well as racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty (Baumgartner et al., 2008; Harmon et al., 2016; Dieter, 2015; Steiker, 2013; Aronson & Cole, 2009; Williams, 2007; Fan, 2002; Zalman et al., 2012). Moreover, an additional area of focus on public opinion includes empirical tests of the Marshall hypothesis. In his concurrence in Furman , Justice Marshall had concluded that most people are uninformed about the death penalty; and if given information, “people who were fully informed as to the purposes of the penalty and its liabilities would find the penalty, shocking, unjust and unacceptable” p. 361. Several studies have sought to examine specific types of knowledge that are influential in swaying public opinion and concluded that race of victim bias, cost, innocence, and deterrence were all significant factors (see Lambert & Clarke, 2001; Cochran& Chamlin, 2005; Michel & Cochran, 2011; Harmon et al., 2022).

INCAPACITATION

Logic dictates that the emergence of true and genuine LWOP sentences have also contributed to the sharp decline in public opinion since one of the primary arguments for proponents continued use of the death penalty relates to future dangerousness or a lack of complete incapacitation for capital offenders (Blecker, 2013). This issue clearly ties into the incapacitation argument and point that the death penalty may still be seen as necessary because inmates pose a future danger to others in prison including prison guards (Van den Haag & Conrad, 1983; Van den Haag, 2014; McLeod, 2018); In contrast, important research conducted on the Furman commutations reject this notion and suggest an extremely low recidivism rate (Marquart & Sorensen, 1989; Buffington-Vollum et al., 2008; Sorensen & Cunningham, 2009). Universal adoption of LWOP by death penalty jurisdictions provides a palatable alternative to execution and a “way out” for prosecutors who need political cover or the appearance of being tough on criminals. Significant research has been conducted on the explosion of LWOP as the new “alternative death sentence” suggesting that many of the same central concerns with capital punishment are also prevalent with LWOP such as high cost, racial bias, factual innocence, and lack of a superior deterrent effect (Kleinstuber, et al. 2022).

At the time of the Radelet and Borg article, scholars seemed to discount the deterrence argument based upon social science research (Acker, 1993). In fact, the American Society of Criminology (ASC) announced in 1989 that the only conclusion that could be drawn was that the death penalty was not a superior deterrent to LWOP, thus suggesting capital punishment should be abolished (Radelet & Lacock, 2009). Based on a sample of “distinguished scholar experts,” they found less than 10% believed the death penalty could be justified on deterrence grounds (p. 500). More current econometric studies gained attention and resulted in a temporary resurgence of this argument among proponents of capital punishment (Cloninger & Marchesini, 2001 & 2006; Zimmerman, 2004; Mocan & Gittings, 2003; Shepherd, 2004 & 2005). However, a follow-up report conducted by the National Research Council in 2012 critiqued all deterrence studies on capital punishment and have ultimately tempered this scholarly controversy. For example, they concluded:

Research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, the committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide. The committee was disappointed to reach the conclusion that research conducted in the 30 years since the earlier NRC report has not sufficiently advanced knowledge to allow a conclusion, however qualified, about the effect of the death penalty on homicide rates. (Nagin & Pepper, 2012, p. 2)

CAPRICE AND RACIAL BIAS

Current scholarship on racial bias has continued to show strong race of victim effects in numerous states (Baumgartner et al., 2015; Grosso et al., 2019 & 2020; Ulmer et al., 2019 & 2021; Pollock & Johnson, 2021; Garret et al., 2017). These race effects appear pronounced when examining the race of the victim and more so when looking at the racial combination of the race of the defendant and victim (as an example, see Grosso, et al. 2020). Follow-up studies to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report continues to show primarily race of victim bias in over 15 jurisdictions (see Gross et. al, 2022). By way of another example, Ulmer et. al (2019), found race of victim bias in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania (DPIC, 2022d), Washington, Delaware (NCSL, 2021), Virginia (DPIC, 2021a), and Maryland have abolished the death penalty due to concerns about racial disparities influencing sentencing decisions (Simpson, 2013). See Table 6 for listing of all states since 2000 that have abolished the death penalty due to concerns related to racial bias. Vandiver (2005) offers an analysis of the complex relationship between race, lynchings and legal executions in the South. Similarly, in a more recent study, Rigby and Seguin (2021) found that lynching and slavery were significant predictors of executions. As stated by the ACLU, “this disparity is a reminder that the death penalty has evolved in this country from lynching and cannot be extricated from this racist past” (ACLU, 2021). The gender of the victim also plays an important role in the racial dyad between the victim and defendant. Baumgartner (2016, 2022) found both race of victim and gender bias (white female victim cases were significantly more likely to end in death sentences and executions in Kentucky and Florida). Additionally, Cochran et. al., (2017) found that the offender’s race, in sexual assaults of white female victims in North Carolina capital cases (1977-2009) suggested “the continuing endurance of this cultural legacy of lethal vengeance” p. 396. The long history of connecting racism, lynching and capital punishment, particularly in the Southern “death belt,” cannot be overstated (Steiker & Steiker 2020; EJI, 2022). Consequently, this issue has continued to remain prominent and impactful on the debate.

Table 6: State reasons for abolition since 2000.

RETRIBUTION

Proponents of capital punishment have continued to justify its use primarily on retributive grounds. While there have been fewer proponent scholars in recent years to advocate for retribution, it remains one of the primary arguments in favor of capital punishment (Blecker, 2004 & 2008). For example, among the small minority of criminal justice and criminology academics who expressed (often qualified) support for the death penalty, the favored rationale is simple retributive justice—mirroring the sentiments of the general public (Griffin, 2021). Support for the death penalty is strongly associated with a belief that when someone commits murder, the death penalty is morally justified. Among the public overall, 64% report the death penalty is morally justified in cases of murder, while 33% say it is not justified ( PEW Research, 2021).

While only asked periodically, and as an open-ended question, the most listed reason for favoring the death penalty for persons convicted of murder remains “an eye for an eye” or similar statement that speaks to punishment equivalent to the crime committed. The last time Gallup posed this question was 2014, and of those who responded that they are in favor of the death penalty, 35% of those respondents listed such a statement. This is down from 37% in 2003, 48% in 2001 and 50% in 1991. However, at the same time, “they deserve it” increased from 6% in 2001, 13% in 2003, and 14% in 2014 (Gallup Inc., 2014).

The evolution of retribution as a rationale supporting capital punishment is a difficult one because it cannot be swayed by evidence or empirical data and thus, cannot be falsified. Additionally, even though there doesn’t seem to be many novel or revolutionary arguments on the retribution front over the past 20 years, scholars continue to go through the chore of explaining the rationale and logic behind a retributivist approach and justifying the retributivist position either philosophically or on epistemic grounds (See, for example, McDermott (2001), Budziszewski (2004), Roberts-Cady (2010), Yost (2010), and Caruso (2018)).

In 2000, Radelet and Borg concluded that when you take away deterrence, retribution is all we have left. On that notion, international human rights organizations have been less than conciliatory. In 2007, Amnesty International proclaimed, “What the argument for retribution boils down to, is often no more than a desire for vengeance masked as a principle of justice.” In 2014, in concert with the World Against the Death Penalty Day, 12 United Nations member States released a joint declaration stating that, “State executions should not be taking place in the 21 st century” (United Nations News, 2017). Modern justice systems must aspire to more than retribution.” And, in 2016, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the death penalty a cruel and inhumane practice, one “which has no place in the 21 st century (Astor, 2016).

Proponents have always been willing to accept some level of error in the name of meeting out justice for the “worst of the worst” (Van den Haag, 1986; Epps, 2015). Nowhere was retribution for the “worst of the worst” more on display than in the November 2022 trial and sentencing of Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland school shooter, where the jury failed to unanimously recommend death, instead opting for a life sentence. This prompted an opinion piece in the New York Times titled, “If Not the Parkland Shooter, Who is the Death Penalty for?” The jury, however, tempered its sentence due to considerations about mental health, his mother’s fetal alcohol abuse and other mitigating factors (Blecker, 2022).

For retributivists, much of the death penalty debate has relied on a fundamental notion that we have never proven that we have executed even one innocent person, and if we have, it is such a small number that it is immaterial and a small price to pay. As Robert Blecker said in a debate sponsored by the Jewish Learning Institute:

Opponents of the death penalty, often called abolitionists, by themselves as well as us [retributivists], attack it, principally, these days, on two grounds: Number one is that we might mistakenly execute the innocent. Number two is that it is racially biased. Let’s take them one by one. Executing the innocent. We do not know for a fact that we have executed even one innocent person. We suspect we have; we probably have; many fewer than the abolitionists claim. But we probably have. I don’t know who it is, but it is horrifying that we have, if we have, and we probably have. Jewish Learning Institute (2022, December 2).

INNOCENCE AND MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE

Miscarriages of justice in capital cases continue to plague the country and garner significant media attention (DPIC, 2021c; Montana Innocence Project, 2021; EJI, 2020; National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 2022; Innocence Project, 2021). This issue has taken the forefront of the debate and has exploded in recent years. The current number of post- Furman exonerations has reached 186 and the average number of exonerations per year from 2000-2020 was 4.29 (DPIC, 2021d) As of 2022, the instrumental use of DNA evidence to exonerate capital offenders has occurred in 28 capital exonerations (DPIC, 2022e). Nonetheless, contrary to the myth that DNA is the answer to solving the miscarriages of justice issue, DNA is not readily available to be used to exonerate wrongful capital cases (DPIC, 2021e). It is notable that these DNA exonerations demonstrate that wrongful convictions are a significant concern and have surfaced as a central argument in the overall death penalty debate. Prior research suggests the following factors are associated with wrongful murder convictions: perjury of witnesses, prosecutorial and police misconduct, false confessions, faulty forensic evidence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and mistaken eyewitness testimony (Scheck, 2005; Scheck, 2010; Harmon 2001; Harmon & Lofquist, 2005; Harmon & Falco, 2017; Gross, et al., 2004).

Much of the current miscarriages of justice research has focused on exonerations but the more controversial task of identifying wrongful executions has not been tackled by many scholars (Lofquist & Harmon, 2008). The DPIC does contain a list of several of these potential cases as well (DPIC, 2022f) 5 . Witness to Innocence, established about 20 years ago, is an organization that was founded by Sister Helen Prejean, an anti-death penalty activist, and Roy Krone, the 100 th post- Furman death row exoneree in the United States. This organization established the Dreams Project in 2022, which is the first initiative to provide social services and financial support to exonerated death row inmates in the United States (WTI, 2022). Additionally, they were selected for the prestigious 2022 Progressive Champion Award by the American Constitution Society (ACS).

The cost of capital punishment, particularly on the county level, is another factor that has driven the reduction in the number of death sentences meted out in recent years (DPIC, 2014 & 2021f; Gershowitz, 2010; Rupp, 2003; Sundby, 2006; Warden, 2012; Desai & Garrett, 2019; Cattani, & McMurdie, 2021; Pollock & Johnson, 2021). More conservative scholars have even noted this factor as a reason to oppose an inefficient and wasteful capital punishment system (Bohm, 1989 & 2008, Acker et al., 2014). Studies consistently report findings that the death penalty is more expensive than an alternative system without the death penalty utilizing LWOP or incarceration for a term of prison years as the maximum punishment (DPIC, 2021f). The average cost for a death penalty case varies considerably depending on the specific jurisdiction. For example, in Connecticut, the estimate (as of 2009) was that the death penalty cost approximately 4 million a year, Illinois was $100 million from 2003-2010, and Maryland spent an additional $186 million more on capital cases over two decades (McLaughlin, 2015). The change in cost since the Radelet & Borg study (2000) suggests a significant increase over time. For instance, in federal cases, the cost of trials between 1998 and 2004 “increased substantially” (Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services, 2010). In addition, in Oregon, a study conducted in 2016 found that the cost of death penalty cases increased over time from about $274,000 in the 1980’s to over $1,700,000 in the 2000’s (Kaplan et al., 2016, p, VI). This was true in the following states: Oklahoma, New Mexico, Oregon, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Washington, Nevada, Kansas, California and the federal government (Table 2; DPIC, 2021f). This argument has become one of the “most powerful new arguments” in the debate (Steiker & Steiker, 2010, p. 670-671). Numerous scholars have continued to argue that funds devoted to capital prosecutions could be better invested in other pressing social needs such as housing, health care, education, and other programs (see Acker et al., 2014). Alternatively, the monies could be reinvested into the criminal justice system, putting more police officers on the streets or repairing a deteriorating jail and prison infrastructure .

EMERGING FRAMES

Over the past decade, a number of emerging frames have begun to define the evolution of the death penalty debate. These might best be described as reflecting evolving societies and evolving standards of decency. More specifically, the impact of the death penalty on those other than the offenders has been revealed, raising questions and concerns about a fundamental legal principle that punishment should only be meted out to the person responsible for the offense. Radelet (2016) offered deep insights into the very real and, arguably, unnecessary impact of a death sentence experienced by both the families of the victims 6 as well as the families of the offenders. The collateral damage done is not limited to families, as the countless number of individuals associated with the event of an execution likely experience long-term negative physical and mental health effects including post-traumatic stress. This includes prison medical directors, correctional officers, witnesses to an execution, defense attorneys , spiritual and religious staff, and attendants tasked with carrying out the most final of acts 7 , a state-authorized execution. While these are largely anecdotal and journalistic accounts to date, this area of research offers an opportunity for future scholars to more systematically explore the impact of what Radelet calls the “incremental retributive impact” of the death penalty (p. 795).

Research indicates the last two decades has witnessed a dismantling of traditional proponent arguments in favor of the death penalty. Retribution cannot be refuted with scientific data. Thus, leaving retribution as the significant argument in favor of this archaic punishment. Meanwhile, the debate over the death penalty, largely reflected in national and regional opinion polls, reveals a public steadily moving away from the death penalty in favor of lifetime incarceration.

Indeed, much has changed in the past two decades. Even as recently as 2000, when Radelet and Borg published their influential article, the event of a miscarriage of justice was just beginning to generate more heightened media attention beyond the narrow legal circles of attorneys and advocates intimately involved in a capital case. The explosion of social media in the early 2000s and the subsequent and unfettered ability to widely share and promote public education campaigns have brought issues of race, innocence, and miscarriages of justice to the forefront of America’s dialogue on the death penalty. Today, high profile figures from government to entertainment celebrities are publicly advocating for death row inmates and politicking about the inhumanity of capital punishment. Nationwide, consistent with the national mood occasioned by the George Floyd killing and Black Lives Matter movement, more self-described “progressive prosecutors” have been elected (see, for example, Philadelphia and parts of California, Texas and Florida). These elected officials 8 are taking very public stands against the death penalty, going so far as making it part of their election platforms.

The Supreme Court’s role in deciding the legitimacy of capital punishment in the U.S. is pivotal. For example, as pointed out by Steiker & Steiker (2020), if abolition is likely to occur, it “will require intervention by the Supreme Court” p.310. In recent years, numerous Supreme Court justices have called for a reconsideration of the Gregg decision (1976) on the basis of “evolving standards of decency” 9 p. 310. However, this type of argument seems implausible as the “Court is presently constituted seems unlikely to embrace a global challenge to the American death penalty” p. 310 . Ultimately, legislative, or judicial action will be required to formally put an end to capital punishment in the United States. In practical terms, however, when and if this ever happens, it might largely end up being more symbolic than anything else if the trends around the states movement away from the death penalty and the imposition of death sentences and executions continue along recent trajectories.

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The Social Science of the Death Penalty: Before, during, and after Trial

• First Online: 24 November 2020

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• Matthew P. West 5 &
• Monica K. Miller 6  

Part of the book series: Advances in Psychology and Law ((APL,volume 5))

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The death penalty is a controversial topic that has attracted attention broadly, from diverse groups including lawmakers, religious leaders, and the general public. Social scientists have also been intrigued by the phenomenon and have studied many aspects related to the penalty. Several of these bodies of research are the focus of this chapter. First, the chapter begins with a discussion of the social science-based explanations for the changes in practice and sentiment that the death penalty has experienced. Over time, the death penalty has become less frequently used, and by fewer and fewer jurisdictions. While many people object to the penalty, others defend its use. Scholars have explained these trends. Second, social science has suggested a number of human tendencies that are adaptive in general life, but inadvertently affect sentiment toward criminals and the death penalty. For instance, people have stereotypes, heuristics, and attributions that facilitate quick decision-making, but could also lead to biased decisions. Third, social scientists have studied the trial itself. The very process of selecting a jury can affect the trial outcome, as can jurors’ consideration of both legal and extralegal factors. Both the prosecutor and defense attorney can also affect the trial outcome in many ways. Fourth, the chapter discusses the roles and research related to offenders’ experiences on death row. Psychologists assess offenders’ competency to be executed, study their well-being, and provide them with mental health services. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the possible future of death penalty law and accompanying research.

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West, M.P., Miller, M.K. (2020). The Social Science of the Death Penalty: Before, during, and after Trial. In: Miller, M.K., Bornstein, B.H. (eds) Advances in Psychology and Law. Advances in Psychology and Law, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54678-6_7

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10 facts about the death penalty in the U.S.

Most U.S. adults support the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to an April 2021 Pew Research Center survey . At the same time, majorities believe the death penalty is not applied in a racially neutral way, does not deter people from committing serious crimes and does not have enough safeguards to prevent an innocent person from being executed.

Use of the death penalty has gradually declined in the United States in recent decades. A growing number of states have abolished it, and death sentences and executions have become less common. But the story is not one of continuous decline across all levels of government. While state-level executions have decreased, the federal government put more prisoners to death under President Donald Trump than at any point since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

As debates over the death penalty continue in the U.S. , here’s a closer look at public opinion on the issue, as well as key facts about the nation’s use of capital punishment.

This Pew Research Center analysis examines public opinion about the death penalty in the United States and explores how the nation has used capital punishment in recent decades. 

The public opinion findings cited here are based primarily on a Pew Research Center survey of 5,109 U.S. adults, conducted from April 5 to 11, 2021. Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology . Here are the  questions used  from this survey, along with responses, and its  methodology .

Findings about the administration of the death penalty – including the number of states with and without capital punishment, the annual number of death sentences and executions, the demographics of those on death row and the average amount of time spent on death row – come from the Death Penalty Information Center and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Six-in-ten U.S. adults strongly or somewhat favor the death penalty for convicted murderers, according to the April 2021 survey. A similar share (64%) say the death penalty is morally justified when someone commits a crime like murder.

Support for capital punishment is strongly associated with the view that it is morally justified in certain cases. Nine-in-ten of those who favor the death penalty say it is morally justified when someone commits a crime like murder; only a quarter of those who oppose capital punishment see it as morally justified.

A majority of Americans have concerns about the fairness of the death penalty and whether it serves as a deterrent against serious crime. More than half of U.S. adults (56%) say Black people are more likely than White people to be sentenced to death for committing similar crimes. About six-in-ten (63%) say the death penalty does not deter people from committing serious crimes, and nearly eight-in-ten (78%) say there is some risk that an innocent person will be executed.

Opinions about the death penalty vary by party, education and race and ethnicity. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are much more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to favor the death penalty for convicted murderers (77% vs. 46%). Those with less formal education are also more likely to support it: Around two-thirds of those with a high school diploma or less (68%) favor the death penalty, compared with 63% of those with some college education, 49% of those with a bachelor’s degree and 44% of those with a postgraduate degree. Majorities of White (63%), Asian (63%) and Hispanic adults (56%) support the death penalty, but Black adults are evenly divided, with 49% in favor and 49% opposed.

Views of the death penalty differ by religious affiliation . Around two-thirds of Protestants in the U.S. (66%) favor capital punishment, though support is much higher among White evangelical Protestants (75%) and White non-evangelical Protestants (73%) than it is among Black Protestants (50%). Around six-in-ten Catholics (58%) also support capital punishment, a figure that includes 61% of Hispanic Catholics and 56% of White Catholics.

Opposition to the death penalty also varies among the religiously unaffiliated. Around two-thirds of atheists (65%) oppose it, as do more than half of agnostics (57%). Among those who say their religion is “nothing in particular,” 63% support capital punishment.

Support for the death penalty is consistently higher in online polls than in phone polls. Survey respondents sometimes give different answers depending on how a poll is conducted. In a series of contemporaneous Pew Research Center surveys fielded online and on the phone between September 2019 and August 2020, Americans consistently expressed more support for the death penalty in a self-administered online format than in a survey administered on the phone by a live interviewer. This pattern was more pronounced among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents than among Republicans and GOP leaners, according to an analysis of the survey results .

Phone polls have shown a long-term decline in public support for the death penalty. In phone surveys conducted by Pew Research Center between 1996 and 2020, the share of U.S. adults who favor the death penalty fell from 78% to 52%, while the share of Americans expressing opposition rose from 18% to 44%. Phone surveys conducted by Gallup found a similar decrease in support for capital punishment during this time span.

A majority of states have the death penalty, but far fewer use it regularly. As of July 2021, the death penalty is authorized by 27 states and the federal government – including the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. military – and prohibited in 23 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Death Penalty Information Center . But even in many of the jurisdictions that authorize the death penalty, executions are rare: 13 of these states, along with the U.S. military, haven’t carried out an execution in a decade or more. That includes three states – California , Oregon and Pennsylvania – where governors have imposed formal moratoriums on executions.

A growing number of states have done away with the death penalty in recent years, either through legislation or a court ruling. Virginia, which has carried out more executions than any state except Texas since 1976, abolished capital punishment in 2021. It followed Colorado (2020), New Hampshire (2019), Washington (2018), Delaware (2016), Maryland (2013), Connecticut (2012), Illinois (2011), New Mexico (2009), New Jersey (2007) and New York (2004).

Death sentences have steadily decreased in recent decades. There were 2,570 people on death row in the U.S. at the end of 2019, down 29% from a peak of 3,601 at the end of 2000, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). New death sentences have also declined sharply: 31 people were sentenced to death in 2019, far below the more than 320 who received death sentences each year between 1994 and 1996. In recent years, prosecutors in some U.S. cities – including Orlando and Philadelphia – have vowed not to seek the death penalty, citing concerns over its application.

Nearly all (98%) of the people who were on death row at the end of 2019 were men. Both the mean and median age of the nation’s death row population was 51. Black prisoners accounted for 41% of death row inmates, far higher than their 13% share of the nation’s adult population that year. White prisoners accounted for 56%, compared with their 77% share of the adult population. (For both Black and White Americans, these figures include those who identify as Hispanic. Overall, about 15% of death row prisoners in 2019 identified as Hispanic, according to BJS.)

Annual executions are far below their peak level. Nationally, 17 people were put to death in 2020, the fewest since 1991 and far below the modern peak of 98 in 1999, according to BJS and the Death Penalty Information Center. The COVID-19 outbreak disrupted legal proceedings in much of the country in 2020, causing some executions to be postponed .

Even as the overall number of executions in the U.S. fell to a 29-year low in 2020, the federal government ramped up its use of the death penalty. The Trump administration executed 10 prisoners in 2020 and another three in January 2021; prior to 2020, the federal government had carried out a total of three executions since 1976.

The Biden administration has taken a different approach from its predecessor. In July 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered a halt in federal executions while the Justice Department reviews its policies and procedures.

The average time between sentencing and execution in the U.S. has increased sharply since the 1980s. In 1984, the average time between sentencing and execution was 74 months, or a little over six years, according to BJS . By 2019, that figure had more than tripled to 264 months, or 22 years. The average prisoner awaiting execution at the end of 2019, meanwhile, had spent nearly 19 years on death row.

A variety of factors explain the increase in time spent on death row, including lengthy legal appeals by those sentenced to death and challenges to the way states and the federal government carry out executions, including the drugs used in lethal injections. In California, more death row inmates have died from natural causes or suicide than from executions since 1978, according to the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation .

Note: This is an update to a post originally published May 28, 2015.

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• Death Penalty

John Gramlich is an associate director at Pew Research Center .

Most Black Americans Believe U.S. Institutions Were Designed To Hold Black People Back

Cultural issues and the 2024 election, what the data says about crime in the u.s., fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted in 2022, before release of video showing tyre nichols’ beating, public views of police conduct had improved modestly, most popular.

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Finding Sources for Death Penalty Research

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One of the most popular topics for an argument essay is the death penalty . When researching a topic for an argumentative essay , accuracy is important, which means the quality of your sources is important.

If you're writing a paper about the death penalty, you can start with this list of sources, which provide arguments for all sides of the topic.

Amnesty International Site

Amnesty International views the death penalty as "the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights." This website provides a gold mine of statistics and the latest breaking news on the subject.

Mental Illness on Death Row

Death Penalty Focus is an organization that aims to bring about the abolition of capital punishment and is a great resource for information. You will find evidence that many of the people executed over the past decades are affected by a form of mental illness or disability.

Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty

This extensive article provides an overview of arguments for and against the death penalty and offers a history of notable events that have shaped the discourse for activists and proponents.

Pro-Death Penalty Links

This page comes from ProDeathPenalty and contains a state-by-state guide to capital punishment resources. You'll also find a list of papers written by students on topics related to capital punishment. 

• 50 Argumentative Essay Topics
• 100 Persuasive Essay Topics
• America's Most Famous Murder Cases
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• 61 General Expository Essay Topic to Practice Academic Writing
• Capital Punishment: Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty
• Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty
• 5 Arguments in Favor of the Death Penalty
• Ethos, Logos, Pathos for Persuasion
• History of Capital Punishment in Canada
• Recent Legal History of the Death Penalty in America
• The Death Penalty in the United States
• Preparing an Argument Essay: Exploring Both Sides of an Issue
• New Challenges to the Death Penalty
• Tips on How to Write an Argumentative Essay
• Furman v. Georgia: Supreme Court Case, Arguments, Impact

5 Death Penalty Essays Everyone Should Know

Capital punishment is an ancient practice. It’s one that human rights defenders strongly oppose and consider as inhumane and cruel. In 2019, Amnesty International reported the lowest number of executions in about a decade. Most executions occurred in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt . The United States is the only developed western country still using capital punishment. What does this say about the US? Here are five essays about the death penalty everyone should read:

“When We Kill”

By: Nicholas Kristof | From: The New York Times 2019

In this excellent essay, Pulitizer-winner Nicholas Kristof explains how he first became interested in the death penalty. He failed to write about a man on death row in Texas. The man, Cameron Todd Willingham, was executed in 2004. Later evidence showed that the crime he supposedly committed – lighting his house on fire and killing his three kids – was more likely an accident. In “When We Kill,” Kristof puts preconceived notions about the death penalty under the microscope. These include opinions such as only guilty people are executed, that those guilty people “deserve” to die, and the death penalty deters crime and saves money. Based on his investigations, Kristof concludes that they are all wrong.

Nicholas Kristof has been a Times columnist since 2001. He’s the winner of two Pulitizer Prices for his coverage of China and the Darfur genocide.

“An Inhumane Way of Death”

By: Willie Jasper Darden, Jr.

Willie Jasper Darden, Jr. was on death row for 14 years. In his essay, he opens with the line, “Ironically, there is probably more hope on death row than would be found in most other places.” He states that everyone is capable of murder, questioning if people who support capital punishment are just as guilty as the people they execute. Darden goes on to say that if every murderer was executed, there would be 20,000 killed per day. Instead, a person is put on death row for something like flawed wording in an appeal. Darden feels like he was picked at random, like someone who gets a terminal illness. This essay is important to read as it gives readers a deeper, more personal insight into death row.

Willie Jasper Darden, Jr. was sentenced to death in 1974 for murder. During his time on death row, he advocated for his innocence and pointed out problems with his trial, such as the jury pool that excluded black people. Despite worldwide support for Darden from public figures like the Pope, Darden was executed in 1988.

“We Need To Talk About An Injustice”

By: Bryan Stevenson | From: TED 2012

This piece is a transcript of Bryan Stevenson’s 2012 TED talk, but we feel it’s important to include because of Stevenson’s contributions to criminal justice. In the talk, Stevenson discusses the death penalty at several points. He points out that for years, we’ve been taught to ask the question, “Do people deserve to die for their crimes?” Stevenson brings up another question we should ask: “Do we deserve to kill?” He also describes the American death penalty system as defined by “error.” Somehow, society has been able to disconnect itself from this problem even as minorities are disproportionately executed in a country with a history of slavery.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, and author. He’s argued in courts, including the Supreme Court, on behalf of the poor, minorities, and children. A film based on his book Just Mercy was released in 2019 starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.

“I Know What It’s Like To Carry Out Executions”

By: S. Frank Thompson | From: The Atlantic 2019

In the death penalty debate, we often hear from the family of the victims and sometimes from those on death row. What about those responsible for facilitating an execution? In this opinion piece, a former superintendent from the Oregon State Penitentiary outlines his background. He carried out the only two executions in Oregon in the past 55 years, describing it as having a “profound and traumatic effect” on him. In his decades working as a correctional officer, he concluded that the death penalty is not working . The United States should not enact federal capital punishment.

Frank Thompson served as the superintendent of OSP from 1994-1998. Before that, he served in the military and law enforcement. When he first started at OSP, he supported the death penalty. He changed his mind when he observed the protocols firsthand and then had to conduct an execution.

“There Is No Such Thing As Closure on Death Row”

By: Paul Brown | From: The Marshall Project 2019

This essay is from Paul Brown, a death row inmate in Raleigh, North Carolina. He recalls the moment of his sentencing in a cold courtroom in August. The prosecutor used the term “closure” when justifying a death sentence. Who is this closure for? Brown theorizes that the prosecutors are getting closure as they end another case, but even then, the cases are just a way to further their careers. Is it for victims’ families? Brown is doubtful, as the death sentence is pursued even when the families don’t support it. There is no closure for Brown or his family as they wait for his execution. Vivid and deeply-personal, this essay is a must-read for anyone who wonders what it’s like inside the mind of a death row inmate.

Paul Brown has been on death row since 2000 for a double murder. He is a contributing writer to Prison Writers and shares essays on topics such as his childhood, his life as a prisoner, and more.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

MURTHY v. MISSOURI

• Supreme Court

MURTHY v. MISSOURI 83 F. 4th 350, reversed and remanded.

• Syllabus [Syllabus] [PDF]
• Opinion , Barrett [Barrett Opinion] [PDF]
• Dissent , Alito [Alito Dissent] [PDF]

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321 , 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL, et al. v . MISSOURI et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit

Under their longstanding content-moderation policies, social-media platforms have taken a range of actions to suppress certain categories of speech, including speech they judge to be false or misleading. In 2020, with the outbreak of COVID–19, the platforms announced that they would enforce these policies against users who post false or misleading content about the pandemic. The platforms also applied misinformation policies during the 2020 election season. During that period, various federal officials regularly spoke with the platforms about COVID–19 and election-related misinformation. For example, White House officials publicly and privately called on the platforms to do more to address vaccine misinformation. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a health advisory that encouraged the platforms to take steps to prevent COVID–19 misinformation “from taking hold.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted the platforms to COVID–19 misinformation trends and flagged example posts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency communicated with the platforms about election-related misinformation in advance of the 2020 Presidential election and the 2022 midterms.

  Respondents are two States and five individual social-media users who sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that the Government pressured the platforms to censor their speech in violation of the First Amendment . Following extensive discovery, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court held that both the state plaintiffs and the individual plaintiffs had Article III standing to seek injunctive relief. On the merits, the court held that the Government  entities and officials, by “coerc[ing]” or “significantly encourag[ing]” the platforms’ moderation decisions, transformed those decisions into state action. The court then modified the District Court’s injunction to state that the defendants shall not coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to suppress protected speech on their platforms.

Held : Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established Article III standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. Pp. 8–29.

  (a) Article III’s “case or controversy” requirement is “fundamental” to the “proper role” of the Judiciary. Raines v. Byrd , 521 U. S. 811 , 818. A proper case or controversy exists only when at least one plaintiff “establish[es] that [she] ha[s] standing to sue,” ibid.—i.e., that she has suffered, or will suffer, an injury that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling,” Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA , 568 U. S. 398 , 409. Here, the plaintiffs’ theories of standing depend on the platforms’ actions—yet the plaintiffs do not seek to enjoin the platforms from restricting any posts or accounts. Instead, they seek to enjoin the Government agencies and officials from pressuring or encouraging the platforms to suppress protected speech in the future.

 The one-step-removed, anticipatory nature of the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries presents two particular challenges. First, it is a bedrock principle that a federal court cannot redress “injury that results from the independent action of some third party not before the court.” Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization , 426 U. S. 26 , 41–42. Second, because the plaintiffs request forward-looking relief, they must face “a real and immediate threat of repeated injury.” O’Shea v. Littleton , 414 U. S. 488 , 496. Putting these requirements together, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, at least one platform will restrict the speech of at least one plaintiff in response to the actions of at least one Government defendant. Here, at the preliminary injunction stage, they must show that they are likely to succeed in carrying that burden. On the record in this case, that is a tall order. Pp. 8–10.

 (b) The plaintiffs’ primary theory of standing involves their “direct censorship injuries.” Pp. 10–26.

  (1) The Court first considers whether the plaintiffs have demonstrated traceability for their past injuries. Because the plaintiffs are seeking only forward-looking relief, the past injuries are relevant only for their predictive value. The primary weakness in the record of past restrictions is the lack of specific causation findings with respect to any discrete instance of content moderation. And while the record reflects that the Government defendants played a role in at least some of the  platforms’ moderation choices, the evidence indicates that the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment. The Fifth Circuit, by attributing every platform decision at least in part to the defendants, glossed over complexities in the evidence. The Fifth Circuit also erred by treating the defendants, plaintiffs, and platforms each as a unified whole. Because “standing is not dispensed in gross,” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez , 594 U. S. 413 , 431, “plaintiffs must demonstrate standing for each claim they press” against each defendant, “and for each form of relief they seek,” ibid. This requires a threshold showing that a particular defendant pressured a particular platform to censor a particular topic before that platform suppressed a particular plaintiff’s speech on that topic. Complicating the plaintiffs’ effort to demonstrate that each platform acted due to Government coercion, rather than its own judgment, is the fact that the platforms began to suppress the plaintiffs’ COVID–19 content before the defendants’ challenged communications started. Pp. 10–14.

  (2) The plaintiffs fail, by and large, to link their past social-media restrictions and the defendants’ communications with the platforms. The state plaintiffs, Louisiana and Missouri, refer only to action taken by Facebook against a Louisiana state representative’s post about children and the COVID–19 vaccine. But they never say when Facebook took action against the official’s post—a critical fact in establishing a causal link. Nor have the three plaintiff doctors established a likelihood that their past restrictions are traceable to either the White House officials or the CDC. They highlight restrictions imposed by Twitter and LinkedIn, but point only to Facebook’s communications with White House officials. Plaintiff Jim Hoft, who runs a news website, experienced election-related restrictions on various platforms. He points to the FBI’s role in the platforms’ adoption of hacked-material policies and claims that Twitter restricted his content pursuant to those policies. Yet Hoft’s declaration reveals that Twitter took action according to its own rules against posting private, intimate media without consent. Hoft does not provide evidence that his past injuries are likely traceable to the FBI or CISA. Plaintiff Jill Hines, a healthcare activist, faced COVID–19-related restrictions on Facebook. Though she makes the best showing of all the plaintiffs, most of the lines she draws are tenuous. Plus, Facebook started targeting her content before almost all of its communications with the White House and the CDC, thus weakening the inference that her subsequent restrictions are likely traceable to Government-coerced enforcement of Facebook’s policies. Even assuming Hines can eke out a showing of traceability, the past is relevant only insofar as it predicts the future. Pp. 14–21.

   (3) To obtain forward-looking relief, the plaintiffs must establish a substantial risk of future injury that is traceable to the Government defendants and likely to be redressed by an injunction against them. The plaintiffs who have not pointed to any past restrictions likely traceable to the Government defendants ( i . e ., everyone other than Hines) are ill suited to the task of establishing their standing to seek forward-looking relief. But even Hines, with her superior showing on past harm, has not shown enough to demonstrate likely future harm at the hands of these defendants. On this record, it appears that the frequent, intense communications that took place in 2021 between the Government defendants and the platforms had considerably subsided by 2022, when Hines filed suit. Thus it is “no more than conjecture” to assume that Hines will be subject to Government-induced content moderation. Los Angeles v. Lyons , 461 U. S. 95 , 108.

 The plaintiffs’ counterarguments are unpersuasive. First, they argue that they suffer “continuing, present adverse effects” from their past restrictions, as they must now self-censor on social media. O’Shea , 414 U. S., at 496. But the plaintiffs “cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.” Clapper , 568 U. S., at 416. Second, the plaintiffs suggest that the platforms continue to suppress their speech according to policies initially adopted under Government pressure. But the plaintiffs have a redressability problem. Without evidence of continued pressure from the defendants, the platforms remain free to enforce, or not to enforce, their policies—even those tainted by initial governmental coercion. And the available evidence indicates that the platforms have continued to enforce their policies against COVID–19 misinformation even as the Federal Government has wound down its own pandemic response measures. Enjoining the Government defendants, therefore, is unlikely to affect the platforms’ content-moderation decisions. Pp. 21–27.

 (c) The plaintiffs next assert a “right to listen” theory of standing. The individual plaintiffs argue that the First Amendment protects their interest in reading and engaging with the content of other speakers on social media. This theory is startlingly broad, as it would grant all social-media users the right to sue over someone else’s censorship—at least so long as they claim an interest in that person’s speech. While the Court has recognized a “ First Amendment right to receive information and ideas,” the Court has identified a cognizable injury only where the listener has a concrete, specific connection to the speaker. Kleindienst v. Mandel , 408 U. S. 753 , 762. Attempting to satisfy this requirement, the plaintiffs emphasize that hearing unfettered speech  on social media is critical to their work as scientists, pundits, and activists. But they do not point to any specific instance of content moderation that caused them identifiable harm. They have therefore failed to establish an injury that is sufficiently “concrete and particularized.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U. S. 555 , 560. The state plaintiffs assert a sovereign interest in hearing from their citizens on social media, but they have not identified any specific speakers or topics that they have been unable to hear or follow. And States do not have third-party “standing as parens patriae to bring an action against the Federal Government” on behalf of their citizens who have faced social-media restrictions. Haaland v. Brackeen , 599 U. S. 255 , 295. Pp. 27–28.

83 F. 4th 350, reversed and remanded.

 Barrett , J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts , C. J., and Sotomayor , Kagan , Kavanaugh , and Jackson , JJ., joined. Alito , J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas and Gorsuch , JJ., joined.

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, [email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.

_________________

VIVEK H. MURTHY, SURGEON GENERAL, et al ., PETITIONERS v. MISSOURI, et al .

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit

 Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court.

 During the 2020 election season and the COVID–19 pandemic, social-media platforms frequently removed, demoted, or fact checked posts containing allegedly false or misleading information. At the same time, federal officials, concerned about the spread of “misinformation” on social media, communicated extensively with the platforms about their content-moderation efforts.

 The plaintiffs, two States and five social-media users, sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that they pressured the platforms to suppress protected speech in violation of the First Amendment . The Fifth Circuit agreed, concluding that the officials’ communications rendered them responsible for the private platforms’ moderation decisions. It then affirmed a sweeping preliminary injunction.

 The Fifth Circuit was wrong to do so. To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek. Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.

 With their billions of active users, the world’s major social-media companies host a “staggering” amount of content on their platforms. Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh , 598 U. S. 471 , 480 (2023). Yet for many of these companies, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, not everything goes. 1 Under their longstanding content-moderation policies, the platforms have taken a range of actions to suppress certain categories of speech. They place warning labels on some posts, while deleting others. They also “demote” content so that it is less visible to other users. And they may suspend or ban users who frequently post content that violates platform policies.

 For years, the platforms have targeted speech they judge to be false or misleading. For instance, in 2016, Facebook began fact checking and demoting posts containing misleading claims about elections. Since 2018, Facebook has removed health-related misinformation, including false claims about a measles outbreak in Samoa and the polio vaccine in Pakistan. Likewise, in 2019, YouTube announced that it would “demonetize” channels that promote anti-vaccine messages.

 In 2020, with the outbreak of COVID–19, the platforms announced that they would enforce their policies against users who post false or misleading content about the pandemic. As early as January 2020, Facebook deleted posts it deemed false regarding “cures,” “treatments,” and the effect of “physical distancing.” 60 Record on Appeal 19,035 (Record). And it demoted posts containing what it described as “conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus.” Id ., at  19,036. Twitter and YouTube began applying their policies in March and May 2020, respectively. Throughout the pandemic, the platforms removed or reduced posts questioning the efficacy and safety of mask wearing and the COVID–19 vaccine, along with posts on related topics.

 The platforms also applied their misinformation policies during the 2020 Presidential election season. Facebook, in late 2019, unveiled measures to counter foreign interference campaigns and voter suppression efforts. One month before the election, multiple platforms suppressed a report about Hunter Biden’s laptop, believing that the story originated from a Russian hack-and-leak operation. After the election, the platforms took action against users or posts that questioned the integrity of the election results.

 Over the past few years, various federal officials regularly spoke with the platforms about COVID–19 and  election-related misinformation. Officials at the White House, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) focused on COVID–19 content, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) concentrated on elections.

  White House . In early 2021, and continuing primarily through that year, the Director of Digital Strategy and members of the COVID–19 response team interacted with the platforms about their efforts to suppress vaccine misinformation. They expressed concern that Facebook in particular was “one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy,” due to the spread of allegedly false or misleading claims on the platform. App. 659–660. Thus, the officials peppered Facebook (and to a lesser extent, Twitter and YouTube) with detailed questions about their policies, pushed them to suppress certain content, and sometimes recommended policy changes. Some of these communications were more aggressive than others. For example, the director of Digital Strategy, frustrated that Facebook had not removed a particular  post, complained: “[L]ast time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection.” Id ., at 698. Another official, unhappy with Facebook’s supposed lack of transparency about its vaccine misinformation problems, wrote: “Internally we have been considering our options on what to do about it.” Id ., at 657. Publicly, White House communications officials called on the platforms to do more to address COVID–19 misinformation—and, perhaps as motivation, raised the possibility of reforms aimed at the platforms, including changes to the antitrust laws and 47 U. S. C. §230 .

  Surgeon General . In July 2021, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a health advisory on misinformation. The advisory encouraged platforms to “[r]edesign recommendation algorithms to avoid amplifying misinformation,” “[i]mpose clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform policies,” and “[p]rovide information from trusted and credible sources to prevent misconceptions from taking hold.” 3 Record 662. At a press conference to announce the advisory, Surgeon General Murthy argued that the platforms should “operate with greater transparency and accountability.” 2 id ., at 626. The following year, the Surgeon General issued a “Request for Information,” seeking, among other things, reports on each platform’s “COVID–19 misinformation policies.” Impact of Health Misinformation in the Digital Information Environment in the United States Throughout the COVID–19 Pandemic Request for Information (RFI), 87 Fed. Reg. 12714 (Mar. 7, 2022).

  CDC . Like the White House, the CDC frequently communicated with the platforms about COVID–19 misinformation. In early 2020, Facebook reached out to the agency, seeking authoritative information about the virus that it could post on the platform. The following year, the CDC’s communications expanded to other platforms, including Twitter and YouTube. The CDC hosted meetings and sent reports to the platforms, alerting them to misinformation  trends and flagging example posts. The platforms often asked the agency for fact checks on specific claims.

  FBI and CISA . These agencies communicated with the platforms about election-related misinformation. They hosted meetings with several platforms in advance of the 2020 Presidential election and the 2022 midterms. The FBI alerted the platforms to posts containing false information about voting, as well as pernicious foreign influence campaigns that might spread on their sites. Shortly before the 2020 election, the FBI warned the platforms about the potential for a Russian hack-and-leak operation. Some companies then updated their moderation policies to prohibit users from posting hacked materials. Until mid-2022, CISA, through its “switchboarding” operations, forwarded third-party reports of election-related misinformation to the platforms. These communications typically stated that the agency “w[ould] not take any action, favorable or unfavorable, toward social media companies based on decisions about how or whether to use this information.” 72 Record 23,223.

 Respondents are two States and five individual social-media users. They were the plaintiffs below, and for the sake of narrative clarity, we will refer to them as “plaintiffs” in this opinion. (Likewise, we will refer to the Government individuals and agencies as “defendants” rather than petitioners.) The individual plaintiffs—three doctors, the owner of a news website, and a healthcare activist—allege that various platforms removed or demoted their COVID–19 or election-related content between 2020 and 2023. The States, Missouri and Louisiana, claim that the platforms have suppressed the speech of state entities and officials, as well as their citizens’ speech.

 Though the platforms restricted the plaintiffs’ content, the plaintiffs maintain that the Federal Government was  behind it. Acting on that belief, the plaintiffs sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that they pressured the platforms to censor the plaintiffs’ speech in violation of the First Amendment . The States filed their complaint on May 5, 2022. The next month, they moved for a preliminary injunction, seeking to stop the defendants from “taking any steps to demand, urge, encourage, pressure, or otherwise induce” any platform “to censor, suppress, remove, de-platform, suspend, shadow-ban, de-boost, restrict access to content, or take any other adverse action against any speaker, content, or viewpoint expressed on social media.” 1 id ., at 253. The individual plaintiffs joined the suit on August 2, 2022.

 After granting extensive discovery, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction. Missouri v. Biden , 680 F. Supp. 3d 630, 729 (WD La. 2023). The court held that officials at the White House, the Surgeon General’s Office, the CDC, the FBI, and CISA likely “coerced” or “significantly encouraged” the platforms “to such extent that the[ir content-moderation] decision[s] should be deemed to be the decisions of the Government.” Id ., at 694 (internal quotation marks omitted). It enjoined those agencies, along with scores of named and unnamed officials and employees, from taking actions “for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-medial platforms.” Missouri v. Biden , 2023 WL 5841935, *1–*2 (WD La., July 4, 2023). 2

 Following a grant of panel rehearing, the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. Missouri v. Biden , 83  F. 4th 350 (2023). It first held that the individual plaintiffs had Article III standing to seek injunctive relief, reasoning that the social-media companies had suppressed the plaintiffs’ speech in the past and were likely to do so again in the future, id ., at 367–369, and that both of these injuries were “traceable to government-coerced enforcement” of the platform’s policies and “redressable by an injunction against the government officials,” id ., at 373. The court also concluded that the States had standing, both because the platforms had restricted the posts of individual state officials and because the States have the “right to listen” to their citizens on social media. Id ., at 371–372.

 On the merits, the Fifth Circuit explained that “a private party’s conduct may be state action if the government coerced or significantly encouraged it.” Id ., at 380 (citing Blum v. Yaretsky , 457 U. S. 991 , 1004 (1982); emphasis deleted). To identify coercion, it asked whether “the government compelled the [private party’s] decision by . . . intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply.” 83 F. 4th, at 380. The court explained that the Government significantly encourages a private party’s choice when it exercises “active, meaningful control, whether by entanglement in the party’s decision-making process or direct involvement in carrying out the decision itself.” Id ., at 377. 3

 Applying those tests, the Fifth Circuit determined that White House officials, in conjunction with the Surgeon General’s Office, likely both coerced and significantly encouraged the platforms to moderate content. Id ., at 388. The court concluded that the same was true for the FBI. Ibid. It held that the CDC and CISA significantly encouraged (but did not coerce) the platforms’ moderation decisions. Id ., at 389, 391.

 The Fifth Circuit agreed with the District Court that the equities favored the plaintiffs. Id ., at 392–394. It then modified the District Court’s injunction to state that the defendants, and their employees and agents, shall not “ ‘coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech.’ ” Id ., at 397. The court did not limit the injunction to the platforms that the plaintiffs use or the topics that the plaintiffs wish to discuss, explaining that the harms stemming from the defendants’ conduct “impac[t] every social-media user.” Id ., at 398.

 The federal agencies and officials applied to this Court for emergency relief. We stayed the injunction, treated the application as a petition for a writ of certiorari, and granted the petition. 601 U. S. ___ (2023).

 We begin—and end—with standing. At this stage, neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. We therefore lack jurisdiction to reach the merits of the dispute.

 Article III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to “Cases” and “Controversies.” The “case or controversy” requirement is “ ‘fundamental to the judiciary’s proper role in our system of government.’ ” Raines v. Byrd , 521 U. S. 811 , 818 (1997) (quoting Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization , 426 U. S. 26 , 37 (1976)). Federal courts can only review statutes and executive actions when necessary “to redress or prevent actual or imminently threatened injury to persons caused by . . . official violation of law.” Summers v. Earth Island Institute , 555  U. S. 488, 492 (2009). As this Court has explained, “[i]f a dispute is not a proper case or controversy, the courts have no business deciding it, or expounding the law in the course of doing so.” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno , 547 U. S. 332 , 341 (2006).

 A proper case or controversy exists only when at least one plaintiff “establish[es] that [she] ha[s] standing to sue.” Raines , 521 U. S., at 818; Department of Commerce v. New York , 588 U. S. 752 , 766 (2019). She must show that she has suffered, or will suffer, an injury that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling.” Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA , 568 U. S. 398 , 409 (2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). These requirements help ensure that the plaintiff has “such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to warrant [her] invocation of federal-court jurisdiction.” Summers , 555 U. S., at 493 (internal quotation marks omitted).

 The plaintiffs claim standing based on the “direct censorship” of their own speech as well as their “right to listen” to others who faced social-media censorship. Brief for Respondents 19, 22. Notably, both theories depend on the platform’s actions—yet the plaintiffs do not seek to enjoin the platforms from restricting any posts or accounts. They seek to enjoin Government agencies and officials from pressuring or encouraging the platforms to suppress protected speech in the future.

 The one-step-removed, anticipatory nature of their alleged injuries presents the plaintiffs with two particular challenges. First , it is a bedrock principle that a federal court cannot redress “injury that results from the independent action of some third party not before the court.” Simon , 426 U. S., at 41–42. In keeping with this principle, we have “been reluctant to endorse standing theories that require guesswork as to how independent decisionmakers will exercise their judgment.” Clapper , 568 U. S., at 413. Rather  than guesswork, the plaintiffs must show that the third-party platforms “will likely react in predictable ways” to the defendants’ conduct. Department of Commerce , 588 U. S., at 768. Second , because the plaintiffs request forward-looking relief, they must face “a real and immediate threat of repeated injury.” O’Shea v. Littleton , 414 U. S. 488 , 496 (1974); see also Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus , 573 U. S. 149 , 158 (2014) (“An allegation of future injury may suffice if the threatened injury is certainly impending, or there is a substantial risk that the harm will occur” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Putting these requirements together, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, at least one platform will restrict the speech of at least one plaintiff in response to the actions of at least one Government defendant. On this record, that is a tall order.

 Before we evaluate the plaintiffs’ different theories, a few preliminaries: The plaintiff “bears the burden of establishing standing as of the time [s]he brought th[e] lawsuit and maintaining it thereafter.” Carney v. Adams , 592 U. S. 53 , 59 (2020). She must support each element of standing “with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U. S. 555 , 561 (1992). At the preliminary injunction stage, then, the plaintiff must make a “clear showing” that she is “likely” to establish each element of standing. See Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. , 555 U. S. 7 , 22 (2008) (emphasis deleted). Where, as here, the parties have taken discovery, the plaintiff cannot rest on “mere allegations,” but must instead point to factual evidence. See Lujan , 504 U. S., at 561 (internal quotation marks omitted).

 The plaintiffs’ primary theory of standing involves their  “direct censorship injuries.” They claim that the restrictions they have experienced in the past on various platforms are traceable to the defendants and that the platforms will continue to censor their speech at the behest of the defendants. So we first consider whether the plaintiffs have demonstrated traceability for their past injuries.

 Here, a note of caution: If the plaintiffs were seeking compensatory relief, the traceability of their past injuries would be the whole ball game. But because the plaintiffs are seeking only forward-looking relief, the past injuries are relevant only for their predictive value. See O’Shea , 414 U. S., at 495–496 (“Past exposure to illegal conduct” can serve as evidence of threatened future injury but “does not in itself show a present case or controversy regarding injunctive relief ”). If a plaintiff demonstrates that a particular Government defendant was behind her past social-media restriction, it will be easier for her to prove that she faces a continued risk of future restriction that is likely to be traceable to that same defendant. Conversely, if a plaintiff cannot trace her past injury to one of the defendants, it will be much harder for her to make that showing. See Clapper , 568 U. S., at 411. In the latter situation, the plaintiff would essentially have to build her case from scratch, showing why she has some newfound reason to fear that one of the named defendants will coerce her chosen platform to restrict future speech on a topic about which she plans to post—in this case, either COVID–19 or the upcoming election. Keep in mind, therefore, that the past is relevant only insofar as it is a launching pad for a showing of imminent future injury.

 The primary weakness in the record of past restrictions is the lack of specific causation findings with respect to any discrete instance of content moderation. The District Court made none. Nor did the Fifth Circuit, which approached standing at a high level of generality. The platforms, it reasoned, “have engaged in censorship of certain viewpoints on  key issues,” while “the government has engaged in a years-long pressure campaign” to ensure that the platforms suppress those viewpoints. 83 F. 4th, at 370. The platforms’ “censorship decisions”—including those affecting the plaintiffs—were thus “likely attributable at least in part to the platforms’ reluctance to risk” the consequences of refusing to “adhere to the government’s directives.” Ibid .

 We reject this overly broad assertion. As already discussed, the platforms moderated similar content long before any of the Government defendants engaged in the challenged conduct. In fact, the platforms, acting independently, had strengthened their pre-existing content-moderation policies before the Government defendants got involved. For instance, Facebook announced an expansion of its COVID–19 misinformation policies in early February 2021, before White House officials began communicating with the platform. And the platforms continued to exercise their independent judgment even after communications with the defendants began. For example, on several occasions, various platforms explained that White House officials had flagged content that did not violate company policy. Moreover, the platforms did not speak only with the defendants about content moderation; they also regularly consulted with outside experts.

 This evidence indicates that the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment. To be sure, the record reflects that the Government defendants played a role in at least some of the platforms’ moderation choices. But the Fifth Circuit, by attributing every platform decision at least in part to the defendants, glossed over complexities in the evidence. 4

  The Fifth Circuit also erred by treating the defendants, plaintiffs, and platforms each as a unified whole. Our decisions make clear that “standing is not dispensed in gross.” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez , 594 U. S. 413 , 431 (2021). That is, “plaintiffs must demonstrate standing for each claim that they press” against each defendant, “and for each form of relief that they seek.” Ibid . Here, for every defendant, there must be at least one plaintiff with standing to seek an injunction. This requires a certain threshold showing: namely, that a particular defendant pressured a particular platform to censor a particular topic before that platform suppressed a particular plaintiff ’s speech on that topic.

 Heeding these conditions is critically important in a sprawling suit like this one. The plaintiffs faced speech restrictions on different platforms, about different topics, at  different times. Different groups of defendants communicated with different platforms, about different topics, at different times. And even where the plaintiff, platform, time, content, and defendant line up, the links must be evaluated in light of the platform’s independent incentives to moderate content. As discussed, the platforms began to suppress the plaintiffs’ COVID–19 content before the defendants’ challenged communications started, which complicates the plaintiffs’ effort to demonstrate that each platform acted due to “government-coerced enforcement” of its policies, 83 F. 4th, at 370 (emphasis deleted), rather than in its own judgment as an “ ‘independent acto[r],’ ” Lujan , 504 U. S., at 562. With these factors in mind, we proceed to untangle the mass of the plaintiffs’ injuries and Government communications.

 The plaintiffs rely on allegations of past Government censorship as evidence that future censorship is likely. But they fail, by and large, to link their past social-media restrictions to the defendants’ communications with the platforms. Thus, the events of the past do little to help any of the plaintiffs establish standing to seek an injunction to prevent future harms.

  Louisiana and Missouri . The state plaintiffs devote minimal attention to restriction of their own social-media content, much less to a causal link between any such restriction and the actions of any Government defendant. They refer only to Facebook’s “flagg[ing] . . . and de-boost[ing]” of a Louisiana state representative’s post about children and the COVID–19 vaccine. Brief for Respondents 20; App. 635–636. We need not decide whether an injury to  a state representative counts as an injury to the State, because evidence of causation is lacking. 5 The States assert only that in November 2021, Facebook, “as a result of [its] work [with the CDC],” updated its policies “to remove additional false claims about the COVID–19 vaccine for children.” 37 Record 11,457. But they never say when Facebook took action against the official’s post—and a causal link is possible only if the removal occurred after Facebook’s communication with the CDC. There is therefore no evidence to support the States’ allegation that Facebook restricted the state representative pursuant to the CDC-influenced policy.

  Jayanta Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriarty . These plaintiffs are doctors who questioned the wisdom of then-prevailing COVID–19 policies, including lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates. Each faced his first social-media restriction in 2020, before the White House and the CDC entered discussions with the relevant platforms. Plaintiffs highlight restrictions imposed by Twitter and LinkedIn, starting in 2021, on Dr. Kulldorff ’s posts about natural immunity. They also point out that Twitter restricted the visibility of Dr. Kheriarty’s posts about vaccine safety and efficacy, as well as the ethics surrounding vaccine mandates. Attempting to show causation, the plaintiffs emphasize that in January 2022, Facebook reported to White House officials that it had recently demoted one post advocating for natural immunity over vaccine immunity. But neither the timing nor the platforms line up (nor, in Dr. Kheriarty’s case, does the content), so the plaintiffs cannot show that these restrictions were traceable to the White House officials. In fact, there is no record evidence that White House officials ever communicated at all  with LinkedIn.

 Drs. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff claim that, after disagreeing with the CDC and other federal health officials, they faced a “relentless covert campaign of social-media censorship.” App. 585 (emphasis deleted). They refer to the platforms’ suppression of the Great Barrington Declaration, their coauthored report calling for an end to lockdowns. But their declarations do not suggest that anyone at the CDC was involved; rather, they point to officials at the National Institutes of Health and the NIAID. Those entities are not before us. With nothing else to show, Drs. Bhattacharya, Kulldorff, and Kheriarty have not established a likelihood that their past restrictions are traceable to either the White House officials or the CDC.

  Jim Hoft . Both Hoft and his news website, “The Gateway Pundit,” experienced election and COVID–19-related restrictions on various platforms. Hoft tries to demonstrate his standing to sue only the FBI and CISA, which means that only the suppression of his election-related posts is relevant. (As already discussed, the record contains no evidence that either the FBI or CISA engaged with the platforms about the pandemic.) First, Hoft points to the FBI’s role in the platforms’ adoption of hacked-material policies. And he claims that Twitter, in December 2020, censored content about the Hunter Biden laptop story under such a policy. The post was titled: “Where’s Hunter? How is Hunter Celebrating the New Year? New Photos of Hunter Biden Pushing Drugs on Women Emerge.” Hoft’s own declaration reveals that Twitter acted according to its “rules against posting or sharing privately produced/distributed intimate media of someone without their express consent.” Id. , at 608. Hoft provides no evidence that Twitter adopted a policy against posting private, intimate content in response to the FBI’s warnings about hack-and-leak operations. Plus, it was Hoft’s brother, Joe Hoft, who posted this tweet; Twitter therefore suspended Joe Hoft’s account. It is  unclear why Jim Hoft would have standing to sue for his brother’s injury.

 Hoft claims that his content appears on a CISA document tracking posts that various entities had flagged for the platforms as misinformation. The spreadsheet shows that a private entity, the Election Integrity Partnership— not CISA—alerted Twitter to an unidentified article from the Gateway Pundit. And the spreadsheet does not reveal whether Twitter removed or otherwise suppressed that post. This evidence does not support the conclusion that Hoft’s past injuries are likely traceable to the FBI or CISA.

  Jill Hines . Of all the plaintiffs, Hines makes the best showing of a connection between her social-media restrictions and communications between the relevant platform (Facebook) and specific defendants (CDC and the White House). That said, most of the lines she draws are tenuous, particularly given her burden of proof at the preliminary injunction stage—recall that she must show that her restrictions are likely traceable to the White House and the CDC.

 A healthcare activist, Hines codirects “Health Freedom Louisiana,” a group that advocated against COVID–19 mask and vaccine mandates. In October 2020—before the start of communications with the White House and the bulk of communications with the CDC—Facebook began to reduce the reach of Hines’ and Health Freedom’s pages. Hines tries to connect Facebook’s subsequent actions against her to both the White House officials and the CDC.

 First, Facebook “deplatformed” ( i . e ., deleted) one of Health Freedom’s groups in July 2021. The last post in the group asked members to contact state legislators about health freedom legislation. Three months earlier, a White House official sent Facebook several “suggestions” that were “circulating around the building and informing thinking,” including that the platform should “end group recom mendations for groups with a history of COVID–19 or vaccine misinformation.” 54 Record 16,870–16,871. A week later, Facebook replied that it had “already removed all health groups from our recommendation feature.” App. 716. It is hard to know what to make of this. Facebook reported that it had already acted, which tends to imply that Facebook made its decision independently of the White House. Moreover, Facebook and the White House communicated about removing groups from recommendation features, not deleting them altogether—further weakening the inference that Facebook was implementing White House policy rather than its own. 6

 Next, in April 2023, Facebook gave Hines a warning after she reposted content from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Two years earlier, White House officials had pushed Facebook to remove the accounts of the “disinformation dozen,” 12 people (including Kennedy) supposedly responsible for a majority of COVID–19-related misinformation. Hines tries to link the warning she received to this earlier White House pressure. Again, though, the link is weak. There is no evidence that the White House asked Facebook to censor every user who reposts a member of the disinformation dozen, nor did Facebook change its policies to do so. Facebook’s 2023 warning to Hines bears only a tangential relationship to the White House’s 2021 directive to Facebook.

 Hines traces her remaining restrictions to the CDC. Beginning in October 2020, Facebook fact checked Hines’ posts about pregnant women taking the COVID–19 vaccine,  along with posts including data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). And in March 2021, the CDC flagged several misinformation trends for Facebook, including claims related to pregnancy and VAERS data. Because Hines does not provide dates for the fact checks, we cannot know whether the CDC could be responsible.

 In May 2022, Facebook restricted Hines’ account for posting an article discussing increased rates of myocarditis in teenagers following vaccination. A little over a year earlier, the CDC warned Facebook against claims of “unsubstantiated links to new [vaccine] side effects,” including “ ‘irritab[ility],’ ” “ ‘auto-immune issues, infertility,’ ” and “ ‘neurological damage including lowered IQ.’ ” 54 Record 17,042–17,043 (emphasis deleted). There is no evidence that the CDC ever listed myocarditis as an unsubstantiated side effect—but because it is an alleged side effect, it at least falls under the same umbrella as the CDC’s communication. Health Freedom’s February 2023 violation, by contrast, was for posting that vaccine manufacturers would not compensate those with vaccine-related injuries—a topic that bears little resemblance to the content that the CDC flagged.

 In April 2023, Hines received violations for posts about children and the vaccine. In November 2021, Facebook worked with the CDC to update its policies to remove additional false claims including that “ ‘the COVID vaccine is not safe for kids.’ ” 37 id ., at 11,457. It is not clear that either of Hines’ posts violated the CDC-influenced policy against false claims related to children and the vaccine. One simply referred to the World Health Organization’s COVID–19 vaccine recommendations for children, and the other discussed the role of children within the “predatory” pharmaceutical industry. App. 789–790. Given the loose match between the policy and the posts, it is hard to call it “likely” that Facebook was enforcing the CDC’s preferences  rather than its own. 7

 With one or two potentially viable links, Hines makes the best showing of all the plaintiffs. Still, Facebook was targeting her pages before almost all of its communications with the White House and the CDC, which weakens the inference that her subsequent restrictions are likely traceable to “government-coerced enforcement” of Facebook’s policies, 83 F. 4th, at 370 (emphasis deleted), rather than to Facebook’s independent judgment. 8 Even assuming, however,  that Hines has eked out a showing of traceability for her past injuries, the past is relevant only insofar as it predicts the future. And this weak record gives her little momentum going forward.

 To obtain forward-looking relief, the plaintiffs must establish a substantial risk of future injury that is traceable to the Government defendants and likely to be redressed by an injunction against them. To carry that burden, the plaintiffs must proffer evidence that the defendants’ “allegedly wrongful behavior w[ould] likely occur or continue.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc. , 528 U. S. 167 , 190 (2000). At the preliminary injunction stage, the plaintiffs must show that they are likely to succeed in carrying that burden. See Winter , 555 U. S., at 22. But without proof of an ongoing pressure campaign, it is entirely speculative that the platforms’ future moderation decisions will be attributable, even in part, to the defendants.

 The plaintiffs treat the defendants as a monolith, claiming broadly that “ ‘the governmen[t]’ ” continues to communicate with the platforms about “ ‘content-moderation issues.’ ” Brief for Respondents 29 (quoting 83 F. 4th, at 369). But we must confirm that each Government defendant continues to engage in the challenged conduct, which is “coercion” and “significant encouragement,” not mere “communication.” Plus, the plaintiffs have only explicitly identified an interest in speaking about COVID–19 or elections—so the defendants’ discussions about content-moderation issues must focus on those topics.

 We begin with the plaintiffs who have not pointed to any past restrictions likely traceable to the Government defendants. This failure to establish traceability for past harms—which can serve as evidence of expected future harm—“substantially undermines [the plaintiffs’] standing theory.” Clapper , 568 U. S., at 411. These plaintiffs ( i.e., everyone other than Hines) are thus particularly ill suited to the task of establishing their standing to seek forward-looking relief.

 Take Hoft, the only plaintiff who has expressed interest in speaking about elections (and thus the only plaintiff with potential standing to sue the FBI and CISA). The FBI’s challenged conduct was ongoing at the time of the complaint, as the agency worked with the platforms during the 2022 midterm election season. Still, Hoft must rely on a “speculative chain of possibilities” to establish a likelihood of future harm traceable to the FBI. Id. , at 414. Hoft’s fu ture posts (presumably about the 2024 Presidential election) must contain content that falls within a misinformation trend that the FBI has identified or will identify in the future. The FBI must pressure the platforms to remove content within that category. The platform must then suppress Hoft’s post , and it must do so at least partly in response to the FBI, rather than in keeping with its own content-moderation policy. Hoft cannot satisfy his burden with such conjecture. CISA, meanwhile, stopped switchboarding in mid-2022, and the Government has represented that it will not resume operations for the 2024 election. Especially in light of his poor showing of traceability in the past, Hoft has failed to demonstrate likely future injury at the hands of the FBI or CISA—so the injunction against those entities cannot survive.

 The doctors and the state plaintiffs, who focus on COVID–19 content, have a similarly uphill battle vis-à-vis the White House, the Surgeon General’s Office, and the CDC. Hines, with her superior showing on past harm, is in a slightly better position to demonstrate likely future harm at the hands of these defendants. Still, she has not shown enough.

 Starting with the White House and Surgeon General’s Office, the vast majority of their public and private engagement with the platforms occurred in 2021, when the pandemic was still in full swing. By August 2022, when Hines joined the case, the officials’ communications about COVID–19 misinformation had slowed to a trickle. Publicly, the White House Press Secretary made two statements in February and April 2022. First, she said that the platforms should continue “call[ing] out misinformation and disinformation.” 3 Record 758. Two months later, she spoke generally about §230 and antitrust reform, but did not mention content moderation or COVID–19 misinformation. In March 2022, the Surgeon General issued a voluntary “Request for Information” from the platforms about  their misinformation policies. 9

 Privately, Facebook sent monthly “Covid Insights” reports to officials in the White House and the Surgeon General’s Office, at least until July 2022. These reports contained information about the top 100 vaccine-related posts in the United States, including whether Facebook took action against any of them. In June, Facebook asked if it should continue sending these reports, as it had stopped seeing “problematic vaccine related” content in the top posts. 50 id ., at 15,645–15,646. The official replied that, though he would “normally say we are good to discontinue,” the reports would be helpful “as we start to ramp up . . . vaccines” for children under five. Id ., at 15,645. The record contains no other evidence of private contact with respect to COVID–19 misinformation.

 On this record, it appears that the frequent, intense communications that took place in 2021 had considerably subsided by 2022. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the changed state of the pandemic.) It is thus very difficult for Hines to show that she faces future harm that is traceable to officials in the White House and the Surgeon General’s Office. Recall the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning regarding traceability for past harms: In the face of a governmental “pressure campaign,” the “platforms’ censorship decisions were likely attributable at least in part to [their] reluctance to risk the adverse legal or regulatory consequences that could result from a refusal to adhere to the government’s directives.” 83 F. 4th, at 370. But in the months leading up to this suit, these officials issued no directives and threatened no consequences. They only asked for information about the most popular vaccine-related posts. Hines does not allege that her content has fallen, or is likely to fall, in that category.

  In these circumstances, Hines cannot rely on “the predictable effect of Government action on the decisions of third parties”; rather, she can only “speculat[e] about the decisions of third parties.” Department of Commerce , 588 U. S., at 768. It is “no more than conjecture” to assume that Hines will be subject to White House-induced content moderation. Los Angeles v. Lyons , 461 U. S. 95 , 108 (1983). Hines (along with the other plaintiffs) has therefore failed to establish a likelihood of future injury traceable to the White House or the Surgeon General’s Office. Likewise, the risk of future harm traceable to the CDC is minimal. The CDC stopped meeting with the platforms in March 2022. Thereafter, the platforms sporadically asked the CDC to verify or debunk several claims about vaccines. But the agency has not received any such message since the summer of 2022. 10

 The plaintiffs’ counterarguments do not persuade. First , they argue that they suffer “continuing, present adverse effects” from their past restrictions, as they must now self-censor on social media. O’Shea , 414 U. S., at 496. But the plaintiffs “cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.” Clapper , 568 U. S., at 416. And as we explained, the plaintiffs have not shown that they are likely to face a risk of future censorship traceable to the defendants . Indeed, even before the defendants entered the scene, the plaintiffs “had a similar incentive to engage in” self-censorship, given the platforms’ independent content moderation. Id ., at 417. So it is “difficult  to see how” the plaintiffs’ self-censorship “can be traced to” the defendants. Ibid .

  Second , the plaintiffs and the dissent suggest that the platforms continue to suppress their speech according to policies initially adopted under Government pressure. Post , at 21. That may be true. But the plaintiffs have a redressability problem. “To determine whether an injury is redressable,” we “consider the relationship between ‘the judicial relief requested’ and the ‘injury’ suffered.” California v. Texas , 593 U. S. 659 , 671 (2021). The plaintiffs assert several injuries—their past social-media restrictions, current self-censorship, and likely social-media restrictions in the future. The requested judicial relief, meanwhile, is an injunction stopping certain Government agencies and employees from coercing or encouraging the platforms to suppress speech. A court could prevent these Government defendants from interfering with the platforms’ independent application of their policies. But without evidence of continued pressure from the defendants, it appears that the platforms remain free to enforce, or not to enforce, those policies—even those tainted by initial governmental coercion. The platforms are “not parties to the suit, and there is no reason they should be obliged to honor an incidental legal determination the suit produced.” Lujan , 504 U. S., at 569 (plurality opinion); see also Haaland v. Brackeen , 599 U. S. 255 , 293–294 (2023).

 Indeed, the available evidence indicates that the platforms have enforced their policies against COVID–19 misinformation even as the Federal Government has wound down its own pandemic response measures. For instance, Hines reports that Facebook imposed several restrictions on her vaccine-related posts in the spring of 2023. Around the same time, in April 2023, President Biden signed a joint resolution that ended the national COVID–19 emergency. See Pub. L. 118–3 , 137 Stat. 6 . The next month, the White House disbanded its COVID–19 Response Team, which was  responsible for many of the challenged communications in this case. Enjoining the Government defendants, therefore, is unlikely to affect the platforms’ content-moderation decisions. 11

 We conclude briefly with the plaintiffs’ “right to listen” theory. The individual plaintiffs claim an interest in reading and engaging with the content of other speakers on social media. The First Amendment , they argue, protects that interest. Thus, the plaintiffs assert injuries based on the restrictions that countless other social-media users have experienced.

 This theory is startlingly broad, as it would grant all  social-media users the right to sue over someone else’s censorship—at least so long as they claim an interest in that person’s speech. This Court has “never accepted such a boundless theory of standing.” Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc. , 568 U. S. 85 , 99 (2013). While we have recognized a “ First Amendment right to ‘receive information and ideas,’ ” we  have identified a cognizable injury only where the listener has a concrete, specific connection to the speaker. Kleindienst v. Mandel , 408 U. S. 753 , 762 (1972). For instance, in Mandel , we agreed that a group of professors had a First Amendment interest in challenging the visa denial of a person they had invited to speak at a conference. Id ., at 762–765. And in Virginia Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. , we concluded that prescription-drug consumers had an interest in challenging the prohibition on advertising the price of those drugs. 425 U. S. 748 , 756–757 (1976).

 Attempting to satisfy this requirement, the plaintiffs emphasize that hearing unfettered speech on social media is critical to their work as scientists, pundits, and activists. But they do not point to any specific instance of content moderation that caused them identifiable harm. They have therefore failed to establish an injury that is sufficiently “concrete and particularized.” Lujan , 504 U. S., at 560.

 The state plaintiffs, claiming their own version of the “right to listen” theory, assert a sovereign interest in hearing from their citizens on social media. See 83 F. 4th, at 372–373. But this theory suffers from the same flaws as the individual plaintiffs’ theory. The States have not identified any specific speakers or topics that they have been unable to hear or follow.

 The States cite this supposed sovereign injury as a basis for asserting third-party standing on behalf of “the citizens they would listen to.” Brief for Respondents 30. But “[t]his argument is a thinly veiled attempt to circumvent the limits on parens patriae standing.” Brackeen , 599 U. S., at 295, n. 11. Namely, States do not have “ ‘standing as parens patriae to bring an action against the Federal Government.’ ” Id ., at 295.

 The States, like the individual plaintiffs, have failed to establish a likelihood of standing.

 The plaintiffs, without any concrete link between their injuries and the defendants’ conduct, ask us to conduct a review of the years-long communications between dozens of federal officials, across different agencies, with different social-media platforms, about different topics. This Court’s standing doctrine prevents us from “exercis[ing such] general legal oversight” of the other branches of Government. TransUnion , 594 U. S., at 423–424. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

1  Since the events of this suit, Twitter has merged into X Corp. and is now known as X. Facebook is now known as Meta Platforms. For the sake of clarity, we will refer to these platforms as Twitter and Facebook, as they were known during the vast majority of the events underlying this suit.

2  The District Court also enjoined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the State Department, along with their officials and employees. 680 F. Supp. 3d, at 700–701, 704–705. The Fifth Circuit removed these entities and individuals from the injunction, however, so they are not before us. Missouri v. Biden , 83 F. 4th 350, 391 (2023).

3  Because we do not reach the merits, we express no view as to whether the Fifth Circuit correctly articulated the standard for when the Government transforms private conduct into state action.

4  The Fifth Circuit relied on the District Court’s factual findings, many of which unfortunately appear to be clearly erroneous. The District Court found that the defendants and the platforms had an “efficient report-and-censor relationship.” Missouri v. Biden , 680 F. Supp. 3d 630, 715 (WD La. 2023). But much of its evidence is inapposite. For instance, the court says that Twitter set up a “streamlined process for censorship requests” after the White House “bombarded” it with such requests. Ibid ., n. 662 (internal quotation marks omitted). The record it cites says nothing about “censorship requests.” See App. 639–642. Rather, in response to a White House official asking Twitter to remove an impersonation account of President Biden’s granddaughter, Twitter told the official about a portal that he could use to flag similar issues. Ibid . This has nothing to do with COVID–19 misinformation. The court also found that “[a] drastic increase in censorship . . . directly coincided with Defendants’ public calls for censorship and private demands for censorship.” 680 F. Supp. 3d, at 715. As to the “calls for censorship,” the court’s proof included statements from Members of Congress, who are not parties to this suit. Ibid ., and n. 658. Some of the evidence of the “increase in censorship” reveals that Facebook worked with the CDC to update its list of removable false claims, but these examples do not suggest that the agency “demand[ed]” that it do so. Ibid. Finally, the court, echoing the plaintiffs’ proposed statement of facts, erroneously stated that Facebook agreed to censor content that did not violate its policies. Id ., at 714, n. 655. Instead, on several occasions, Facebook explained that certain content did not qualify for removal under its policies but did qualify for other forms of moderation.

5  The Fifth Circuit held that States “sustain a direct injury when the social-media accounts of state officials are censored due to federal coercion.” 83 F. 4th, at 372. Because the State failed to show that its official was censored, we need not express a view on this theory.

6  Hines tries to link this restriction to the Surgeon General’s Office as well, suggesting that the White House and Surgeon General together pressured Facebook. But the record reveals that a White House official sent the relevant email, and Facebook responded only to White House officials. The Surgeon General’s Office was seemingly uninvolved. Thus, Hines cannot demonstrate that her past restriction is traceable to the Surgeon General’s Office. The plaintiffs do not attempt to draw any other connections between their restrictions and the Surgeon General’s Office.

7  The dissent does not dispute the Court’s assessment of these asserted links. Instead, the dissent draws links that Hines herself has not set forth, often based on injuries that Hines never claimed. Compare post , at 19–20, with Brief for Respondents 19–20; App. 628–632. For instance, the dissent says that in May 2021, Facebook began demoting content from accounts that repeatedly shared misinformation, purportedly due to White House pressure. Post , at 10, 19. Because Facebook frequently fact checked Hines’ posts, the dissent simply assumes (without citing Hines’ declarations) that her content was subsequently hidden from her friends’ feeds. Post , at 19. Likewise, pointing to an August 2021 policy change, the dissent concludes that the mid-July 2021 deplatforming of one of Hines’ groups rendered her other pages “non-recommendable.” Ibid . Hines, however, never claimed as much—and the plaintiffs bear the burden to establish standing by setting forth “specific facts.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U. S. 555 , 561 (1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). It is especially important to hold the plaintiffs to their burden in a case like this one, where the record spans over 26,000 pages and the lower courts did not make any specific causation findings. As the Seventh Circuit has memorably put it, “[j]udges are not like pigs, hunting for truffles buried [in the record].” Gross v. Cicero , 619 F. 3d 697 , 702 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted).

8  By acknowledging the real possibility that Facebook acted independently in suppressing Hines’ content, we are not applying a “new and heightened standard,” as the dissent claims. Post , at 20. The whole purpose of the traceability requirement is to ensure that “in fact, the asserted injury was the consequence of the defendants’ actions,” rather than of “the independent action” of a third party. Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization , 426 U. S. 26 , 42, 45 (1976). Nor is our analysis inconsistent with Department of Commerce v. New York , 588 U. S. 752 (2019) . See post , at 19. There, the plaintiffs, including several States, challenged the Secretary of Commerce’s decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the census. 588 U. S., at 761, 764. They argued that this question would make noncitizens less likely to respond to the census, leading to an inaccurate population count and the concomitant loss of congressional seats and federal funding. Id ., at 766–767. The plaintiffs’ injuries thus depended on the actions of third parties. Id ., at 767–768. The District Court found that noncitizens had historically responded at lower rates than citizens to previous versions of the census (and other surveys) that included a citizenship question and that noncitizens were disproportionately likely to stop responding to those questionnaires once they reached the citizenship question. New York v. United States Dept. of Commerce , 351 F. Supp. 3d 502, 578–579 (SDNY 2019). Crediting those findings, this Court concluded that the plaintiffs “met their burden of showing that third parties will likely react in predictable ways to the citizenship question . ” Department of Commerce , 588 U. S., at 768. The dissent suggests that it “would have been difficult for [the plaintiffs] to determine which noncitizen households failed to respond to the census because of a citizenship question and which had other reasons.” Post , at 20. But the evidence made clear that the citizenship question drove noncitizens’ lower response rates; the District Court made no findings about noncitizens’ response rates to the census generally. Here, by contrast, the evidence is murky. Facebook targeted Hines’ posts (and others like hers) before the White House entered the picture, meaning that Facebook had independent incentives to restrict Hines’ content. It is therefore difficult to say that the White House was responsible (even in part) for all of Hines’ later restrictions— especially absent clear links between White House content-moderation requests to Facebook and Facebook’s actions toward Hines. Cf. post , at 21.

9  According to a declaration submitted by the Surgeon General’s Chief of Staff, no one in that office met with the platforms to discuss their submissions “or otherwise had substantive communications with social media companies about the RFI.” 61 Record 19,480.

10  The dissent claims that the future injury prong is satisfied because Facebook continued to censor Hines at the time of her complaint and thereafter. Post , at 17. But the dissent gives short shrift to the key point: By the time Hines filed suit in August 2022, the White House was no longer engaged in any sort of “pressure campaign” toward Facebook. (Note that the dissent, in its 10-page recounting of the record, devotes only one paragraph to the events of 2022. Post , at 14.) Thus, when Hines sued, it was unlikely that Facebook’s actions were fairly traceable to the White House at the time—or would be going forward.

11  As with traceability, the dissent is wrong to claim that we are applying a “new and elevated standard for redressability.” Post , at 22. Far from holding plaintiffs to a “certainty” standard, ibid ., we simply conclude that an injunction against the Government defendants is unlikely to stop the platforms from suppressing the plaintiffs’ speech. And while traceability and redressability are “ ‘ often “flip sides of the same coin,” ’ ” post , at 22 (quoting FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , 602 U. S. 367 , 380 (2024); emphasis added), that is not always the case. Facebook might continue to remove Hines’ posts under a policy that it adopted at the White House’s behest (thus satisfying traceability). But if the White House officials have already abandoned their pressure campaign, enjoining them is unlikely to prompt Facebook to stop enforcing the policy (thus failing redressability). Finally, by invoking Massachusetts v. EPA , it is the dissent that applies a new and loosened standard for redressability. Post , at 22. In that case, we explained that state plaintiffs are “entitled to special solicitude” when it comes to standing, and we conducted our analysis accordingly. 549 U. S. 497 , 520 (2007). That “special solicitude” does not apply to Jill Hines, an individual.

 Justice Alito , with whom Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch join, dissenting.

 This case involves what the District Court termed “a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign” conducted by high-ranking federal officials against Americans who expressed certain disfavored views about COVID–19 on social media. Missouri v. Biden , 680 F. Supp. 3d 630, 729 (WD La. 2023). Victims of the campaign perceived by the lower courts brought this action to ensure that the Government did not continue to coerce social media platforms to suppress speech. Among these victims were two States, whose public health officials were hampered in their ability to share their expertise with state residents; distinguished professors of medicine at Stanford and Harvard; a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine; the owner and operator of a news website; and Jill Hines, the director of a consumer and human rights advocacy organization. All these victims simply wanted to speak out on a question of the utmost public importance.

 To protect their right to do so, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction, App. 278–285, and the Court of Appeals found ample evidence to support injunctive relief. See Missouri v. Biden , 83 F. 4th 350 (CA5 2023).

 If the lower courts’ assessment of the voluminous record is correct, this is one of the most important free speech cases  to reach this Court in years. Freedom of speech serves many valuable purposes, but its most important role is protection of speech that is essential to democratic self-government, see Snyder v. Phelps , 562 U. S. 443 , 451–452 (2011), and speech that advances humanity’s store of knowledge, thought, and expression in fields such as science, medicine, history, the social sciences, philosophy, and the arts, see United States v. Alvarez , 567 U. S. 709 , 751 (2012) ( Alito , J., dissenting).

 The speech at issue falls squarely into those categories. It concerns the COVID–19 virus, which has killed more than a million Americans. 1 Our country’s response to the COVID–19 pandemic was and remains a matter of enormous medical, social, political, geopolitical, and economic importance, and our dedication to a free marketplace of ideas demands that dissenting views on such matters be allowed. I assume that a fair portion of what social media users had to say about COVID–19 and the pandemic was of little lasting value. Some was undoubtedly untrue or misleading, and some may have been downright dangerous. But we now know that valuable speech was also suppressed. 2 That is what inevitably happens when entry to  the marketplace of ideas is restricted.

 Of course, purely private entities like newspapers are not subject to the First Amendment , and as a result, they may publish or decline to publish whatever they wish. But government officials may not coerce private entities to suppress speech, see National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo , 602 U. S. 175 (2024) , and that is what happened in this case.

 The record before us is vast. It contains evidence of communications between many different government actors and a variety of internet platforms, as well as evidence regarding the effects of those interactions on the seven different plaintiffs. For present purposes, however, I will focus on (a) just a few federal officials (namely, those who worked either in the White House or the Surgeon General’s office), (b) only one of the most influential social media platforms, Facebook, and (c) just one plaintiff, Jill Hines, because if any of the plaintiffs has standing, we are obligated to reach the merits of this case. See Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. , 547 U. S. 47 , 52, n. 2 (2006).

 With the inquiry focused in this way, here is what the  record plainly shows. For months in 2021 and 2022, a coterie of officials at the highest levels of the Federal Government continuously harried and implicitly threatened Facebook with potentially crippling consequences if it did not comply with their wishes about the suppression of certain COVID–19-related speech. Not surprisingly, Facebook repeatedly yielded. As a result Hines was indisputably injured, and due to the officials’ continuing efforts, she was threatened with more of the same when she brought suit. These past and threatened future injuries were caused by and traceable to censorship that the officials coerced, and the injunctive relief she sought was an available and suitable remedy. This evidence was more than sufficient to establish Hines’s standing to sue, see Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U. S. 555 , 561–562 (1992), and consequently, we are obligated to tackle the free speech issue that the case presents. The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.

 That is regrettable. What the officials did in this case was more subtle than the ham-handed censorship found to be unconstitutional in Vullo , but it was no less coercive. And because of the perpetrators’ high positions, it was even more dangerous. It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so. Officials who read today’s decision together with Vullo will get the message. If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by. That is not a message this Court should send.

 In the next section of this opinion, I will recount in some detail what was done by the officials in this case, but in considering the coercive impact of their conduct, two prominent facts must be kept in mind.

 First, social media have become a leading source of news  for many Americans, 3 and with the decline of other media, their importance may grow.

 Second, internet platforms, although rich and powerful, are at the same time far more vulnerable to Government pressure than other news sources. If a President dislikes a particular newspaper, he (fortunately) lacks the ability to put the paper out of business. But for Facebook and many other social media platforms, the situation is fundamentally different. They are critically dependent on the protection provided by §230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, 47 U. S. C. §230 , which shields them from civil liability for content they spread. They are vulnerable to antitrust actions; indeed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described a potential antitrust lawsuit as an “existential” threat to his company. 4 And because their substantial overseas operations may be subjected to tough regulation in the European Union and other foreign jurisdictions, they rely on the Federal Government’s diplomatic efforts to protect their interests.

 For these and other reasons, 5 internet platforms have a powerful incentive to please important federal officials, and the record in this case shows that high-ranking officials  skillfully exploited Facebook’s vulnerability. When Facebook did not heed their requests as quickly or as fully as the officials wanted, the platform was publicly accused of “killing people” and subtly threatened with retaliation.

 Not surprisingly these efforts bore fruit. Facebook adopted new rules that better conformed to the officials’ wishes, and many users who expressed disapproved views about the pandemic or COVID–19 vaccines were “deplatformed” or otherwise injured.

 I begin by recounting the White House-led campaign to coerce Facebook. The story starts in early 2021, when White House officials began communicating with Facebook about the spread of misinformation about COVID–19 on its platform. Their emails started as questions, e . g ., “Can you also give us a sense of misinformation that might be falling outside of your removal polices?” 10 Record 3397. But when the White House did not get the results it wanted, its questions quickly turned to virtual demands. And sometimes, those statements were paired with explicit references to potential consequences.

 We may begin this account with an exchange that occurred in March 2021, when the Washington Post reported that Facebook was conducting a study that examined whether posts on the platform questioning COVID–19’s severity or the vaccines’ efficacy dissuaded some Americans from being vaccinated. 6 The study noted that Facebook’s rules permitted some of this content to circulate. Rob Flaherty, the White House Director of Digital Strategy, promptly emailed Facebook about the report. The subject  line of his email contained this accusation: “You are hiding the ball.” 30 id ., at 9366. Flaherty noted that the White House was “gravely concerned that [Facebook] is one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy,” and he demanded to know how Facebook was trying to solve the problem. Id ., at 9365. In his words, “we want to know that you’re trying, we want to know how we can help, and we want to know that you’re not playing a shell game with us when we ask you what is going on.” Ibid.

 Andy Slavitt, the White House Senior Advisor for the COVID–19 Response, chimed in with similar complaints. “[R]elative to othe[r]” platforms, he said, “interactions with Facebook are not straightforward” even though the misinformation problems there, in his view, were “worse.” Id ., at 9364. According to Slavitt, the White House did not believe that Facebook was “trying to solve the problem,” so he informed Facebook that “[i]nternally we have been considering our options on what to do about it.” Ibid.

 Facebook responded apologetically to this and other missives. It acknowledged that “[w]e obviously have work to do to gain your trust.” Id ., at 9365. And after a follow-up conversation, the platform promised Flaherty and Slavitt that it would adopt additional policies to “reduc[e] virality of vaccine hesitancy content.” Id ., at 9369. In particular, Facebook promised to “remove [any] Groups, Pages, and Accounts” that “disproportionately promot[e] . . . sensationalized content” about the risks of vaccines, even though it acknowledged that user stories about their experiences and those of family members or friends were “ofte[n] true.” Ibid. Facebook also promised to share additional data with the White House, ibid ., but Flaherty was not fully satisfied. He said that the additional data Facebook offered was not “going to get us the info we’re looking for,” but “it shows to me that you at least understand the ask.” Id ., at 9368.

 In April, Flaherty again demanded information on the  “actions and changes” Facebook was taking “to ensure you’re not making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse.” Id ., at 9371. To emphasize his urgency, Flaherty likened COVID–19 misinformation to misinformation that led to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Ibid . Facebook, he charged, had helped to “increase skepticism” of the 2020 election, and he claimed that “an insurrection . . . was plotted, in large part, on your platform.” Ibid . He added: “I want some assurances, based in data, that you are not doing the same thing again here.” Ibid. Facebook was surprised by these remarks because it “thought we were doing a better job” communicating with the White House, but it promised to “more clearly respon[d]” in the future. Ibid.

 The next week, Facebook officers spoke with Slavitt and Flaherty about reports of a rare blood clot caused by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Id ., at 9385. The conversation quickly shifted when the White House noticed that one of the most-viewed vaccine-related posts from the past week was a Tucker Carlson video questioning the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Id ., at 9376, 9388. Facebook informed the White House that the video did not “qualify for removal under our policies” and thus would be demoted instead, ibid. , but that answer did not please Flaherty. “How was this not violative?” he queried, and “[w]hat exactly is the rule for removal vs demoting?” Id ., at 9387. Then, for the second time in a week, he invoked the January 6 attack: “Not for nothing, but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection.” Id ., at 9388. When Facebook did not respond promptly, he made his demand more explicit: “These questions weren’t rhetorical.” Id ., at 9387 .

 If repeated accusations that Facebook aided an insurrection did not sufficiently convey the White House’s displeasure, Flaherty and Slavitt made sure to do so by phone. 7 In  one call, both officials chided Facebook for not being “straightforward” and not “play[ing] ball.” Committee Report 141–142. Flaherty also informed Facebook that he was reporting on the COVID–19 misinformation problem to the President. Id ., at 136.

 After a second call, a high-ranking Facebook executive perceived that Slavitt was “outraged—not too strong a word to describe his reaction”—that the platform had not removed a fast-spreading meme suggesting that the vaccines might cause harm. Id ., at 295. The executive had “countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US,” but Slavitt was unmoved, in part because he presumed that other platforms “would never accept something like this.” Ibid .

 A few weeks later, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked at a press conference about Facebook’s decision to keep former President Donald Trump off the platform. See Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (May 5, 2021) (hereinafter May 5 Press Briefing). 8 Psaki deflected that question but took the opportunity to call on platforms like Facebook to “ ‘stop amplifying untrustworthy content . . . , especially related to COVID–19, vaccinations, and elections.’ ” 78 Record 25170. In the same breath, Psaki reminded the platforms that President Biden “ ‘supports . . . a robust anti-trust program.’ ” Id ., at 25171 (emphasis deleted); May 5 Press Briefing.

 Around this same time, Flaherty and Slavitt were in- terrogating Facebook on the mechanics of its content- moderation rules for COVID–19 misinformation. 30 Record  9391, 9397. Flaherty also forwarded to Facebook a “COVID–19 Vaccine Misinformation Brief ” that had been drafted by outside researchers and was “informing thinking” in the White House on what Facebook’s policies should be. 52 id ., at 16186. This document recommended that Facebook strengthen its efforts against misinformation in several ways. It recommended the adoption of “progressively severe penalties” for accounts that repeatedly posted misinformation, and it proposed that Facebook make it harder for users to find “anti-vaccine or vaccine-hesitant propaganda” from other users. Ibid . Facebook declined to adopt some of these suggestions immediately, but it did “se[t] up more dedicated monitoring for [COVID] vaccine content” and adopted a policy of “stronger demotions [for] a broader set of content.” 30 id ., at 9396.

 The White House responded with more questions. Acknowledging that he sounded “like a broken record,” Flaherty interrogated Facebook about “how much content is being demoted, and how effective [Facebook was] at mitigating reach, and how quickly.” Id ., at 9395. Later, Flaherty chastised Facebook for failing to prevent some  vaccine-hesitant content from showing up through the platform’s search function. Id ., at 9400. “ ‘[R]emoving bad information from search’ is one of the easy, low-bar things you guys do to make people like me think you’re taking action,” he said. Id ., at 9399. “If you’re not getting that right, it raises even more questions about the higher bar stuff.” Ibid . A few weeks after this latest round of haranguing, Facebook expanded penalties for individual Facebook accounts that repeatedly shared content that fact-checkers deemed misinformation; henceforth, all of those individuals’ posts would show up less frequently in their friends’ news feeds. See 9 id ., at 2697; Facebook, Taking Action Against People Who Repeatedly Share Misinformation  (May 26, 2021). 9

 Perhaps the most intense period of White House pressure began a short time later. On July 15, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released an advisory titled “Confronting Health Misinformation.” 78 Record 25171, 25173. Dr. Murthy suggested, among other things, algorithmic changes to demote misinformation and additional consequences for misinformation “ ‘super-spreaders.’ ” U. S. Public Health Service, Confronting Health Misinformation: The U. S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment 12 (2021). 10 Dr. Murthy also joined Psaki at a press conference, where he asked the platforms to take “much, much more . . . aggressive action” to combat COVID–19 misinformation “because it’s costing people their lives.” Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy (July 15, 2021). 11

 At the same press conference, Psaki singled out Facebook as a primary driver of misinformation and asked the platform to make several changes. Facebook “should provide, publicly and transparently, data on the reach of COVID–19 [and] COVID vaccine misinformation.” Ibid. It “needs to move more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts.” Ibid. And it should change its algorithm to promote “quality information sources.” Ibid. These recommendations echoed Slavitt’s and Flaherty’s private demands from the preceding months—as Psaki herself acknowledged. The White House “engage[s] with [Facebook] regularly,” she said, and Facebook “certainly understand[s] what our asks  are.” Ibid. Apparently, the White House had not gotten everything it wanted from those private conversations, so it was turning up the heat in public.

 Facebook responded by telling the press that it had partnered with the White House to counter misinformation and that it had “removed accounts that repeatedly break the rules” and “more than 18 million pieces of COVID misinformation.” 78 Record 25174. But at another press briefing the next day, Psaki said these efforts were “[c]learly not” sufficient and expressed confidence that Facebook would “make decisions about additional steps they can take.” See id ., at 25175; Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki (July 16, 2021). 12

 That same day, President Biden told reporters that social media platforms were “ ‘killing people’ ” by allowing COVID-related misinformation to circulate. 78 Record 25174, 25212. At oral argument, the Government suggested that the President later disclaimed any desire to hold the platforms accountable for misinformation, Tr. of Oral Arg. 34–35, but that is not so. The President’s so-called clarification, like many other statements by Government officials, called on “ ‘Facebook’ ” to “ ‘do something about the misinformation’ ” on its platform. B. Klein, M. Vazquez, & K. Collins, Biden Backs Away From His Claim That Facebook Is ‘Killing People’ by Allowing COVID Misinformation, CNN (July 19, 2021). 13

 And far from disclaiming potential regulatory action, the White House confirmed that it had not “ ‘taken any options off the table.’ ” Ibid. In fact, the day after the President’s supposed clarification, the White House Communications Director commended the President for “speak[ing] very aggressively” and affirmed that platforms “certainly . . .  should be held accountable” for publishing misinformation. 61 Record 19400–19401. Indeed, she said that the White House was “reviewing” whether §230 should be amended to open the platforms to suit. Id ., at 19400.

 Facebook responded quickly. The same day the President made his “killing people” remark, the platform reached out to Dr. Murthy to determine “the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.” 9 id ., at 2690. The next day, Facebook asked officials about how to “get back to a good place” with the White House. 30 id ., at 9403. And soon after, Facebook sent an email saying that it “hear[d]” the officials’ “call for us to do more,” and promptly assured the White House that it would comply. 9 id ., at 2706. In spite of the White House’s inflammatory rhetoric, Facebook at all times went out of its way to strike a conciliatory tone. Only two days after the President’s remark—and before his supposed clarification—Facebook assured Dr. Murthy that, though “it’s not great to be accused of killing people,” Facebook would “find a way to deescalate and work together collaboratively.” Id ., at 2713.

 Concrete changes followed in short order. In early August, the Surgeon General’s Office reached out to Facebook for “an update of any new/additional steps you are taking with respect to health misinformation in light of ” the July 15 advisory. Id ., at 2703. In response, Facebook informed the Surgeon General that it would soon “expan[d] [its] COVID policies to further reduce the spread of potentially harmful content.” Id ., at 2701.

 White House-Facebook conversations about misinformation did not end there. In September, the Wall Street Journal wrote about the spread of misinformation on Facebook, and Facebook preemptively reached out to the White House to clarify. 8 id ., at 2681. Flaherty asked (again) for information on “how big the problem is, what solutions you’re implementing, and how effective they’ve been.” Ibid .

  Then in October, the Washington Post published yet another story suggesting that Facebook knew more than it let on about the spread of misinformation. Flaherty emailed the link to Facebook with the subject line: “not even sure what to say at this point.” Id ., at 2676. And the Surgeon General’s Office indicated both publically and privately that it was disappointed in Facebook. See @Surgeon_General, X (Oct. 29, 2021) (accusing Facebook of “lacking . . . transparency and accountability”); 14 9 Record 2708. Facebook offered to speak with both the White House and the Surgeon General’s Office to assuage concerns. 8 id ., at 2676.

 Interactions related to COVID–19 misinformation continued until at least June 2022. Id ., at 2663. At that point, Facebook proposed discontinuing its reports on misinformation, but assured the White House that it would be “happy to continue, or to pick up at a later date, . . . if we hear from you that this continues to be of value.” Ibid. Flaherty asked Facebook to continue reporting on misinformation because the Government was preparing to roll out COVID–19 vaccines for children under five years old and, “[o]bviously,” that rollout “ha[d] the potential to be just as charged” as other vaccine-related controversies. Ibid. Flaherty added that he “[w]ould love to get a sense of what you all are planning here,” and Facebook agreed to provide information for as long as necessary. Ibid.

 What these events show is that top federal officials continuously and persistently hectored Facebook to crack down on what the officials saw as unhelpful social media posts, including not only posts that they thought were false or misleading but also stories that they did not claim to be literally false but nevertheless wanted obscured. See, e . g ., 30 id ., at 9361, 9365, 9369, 9385–9388. And Facebook’s reactions to these efforts were not what one would expect from  an independent news source or a journalistic entity dedicated to holding the Government accountable for its actions. Instead, Facebook’s responses resembled that of a subservient entity determined to stay in the good graces of a powerful taskmaster. Facebook told White House officials that it would “work . . . to gain your trust.” Id ., at 9365. When criticized, Facebook representatives whimpered that they “thought we were doing a better job” but promised to do more going forward. Id ., at 9371. They pleaded to know how they could “get back to a good place” with the White House. Id ., at 9403. And when denounced as “killing people,” Facebook responded by expressing a desire to “work together collaboratively” with its accuser. 9 id ., at 2713; 78 id ., at 25174. The picture is clear.

 While all this was going on, Jill Hines and others were subjected to censorship. Hines serves as the co-director of Health Freedom Louisiana, an organization that advocated against vaccine and mask mandates during the pandemic. Over the course of the pandemic—and while the White House was pressuring Facebook—the platform repeatedly censored Hines’s speech.

 For instance, in the summer and fall of 2021, Facebook removed two groups that Hines had formed to discuss the vaccine. 4 id ., at 1313–1315. In January 2022, Facebook restricted posts from Hines’s personal page “for 30 days . . . for sharing the image of a display board used in a legislative hearing that had Pfizer’s preclinical trial data on it.” Id ., at 1313. In late May, Facebook restricted Hines for 90 days for sharing an article about “increased emergency calls for teens with myocarditis following [COVID] vaccination.” Id ., at 1313–1314. Hines’s public pages, Reopen Louisiana and Health Freedom Louisiana, were subjected to similar treatment. Facebook’s disciplinary actions meant that both public pages suffered a drop in viewership; as Hines put it,  “Each time you build viewership up [on a page], it is knocked back down with each violation.” Id ., at 1314. And from February to April 2023, Facebook issued warnings and violations for several vaccine-related posts shared on Hines’s personal and public pages, including a post by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and an article entitled “ ‘Some Americans Shouldn’t Get Another COVID-19 Vaccine Shot, FDA Says.’ ” 78 id ., at 25503–25506. The result was that “[n]o one else was permitted to view or engage with the[se] post[s].” Id ., at 25503.

 Hines and the other plaintiffs in this case brought this suit and asked for an injunction to stop the censorship campaign just described. To maintain that suit, they needed to show that they (1) were imminently threatened with an injury in fact (2) that is traceable to the defendants and (3) that could be redressed by the court. Lujan, 504 U. S., at 560–561; O’Shea v. Littleton , 414 U. S. 488 , 496 (1974). Hines satisfied all these requirements.

  Injury in fact . Because Hines sought and obtained a preliminary injunction, it was not enough for her to show that she had been injured in the past. Instead, she had to identify a “real and immediate threat of repeated injury” that existed at the time she sued—that is, on August 2, 2022. O’Shea , 414 U. S., at 496; see also Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc. , 528 U. S. 167 , 191 (2000); Mollan v. Torrance , 9 Wheat. 537, 539 (1824).

 The Government concedes that Hines suffered past injury, but it claims that she did not make the showing needed to obtain prospective relief. See Brief for Petitioners 17. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected this argument and found that Hines had shown that  she was likely to be censored in the future. 680 F. Supp. 3d, at 713; 83 F. 4th, at 368–369. We have previously examined such findings under the “clearly erroneous” test. See Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc. , 438 U. S. 59 , 77 (1978). But no matter what test is applied, the record clearly shows that Hines was still being censored when she sued—and that the censorship continued thereafter. See supra , at 15–16. That was sufficient to establish the type of injury needed to obtain injunctive relief. O’Shea , 414 U. S., at 496; see also County of Riverside v. McLaughlin , 500 U. S. 44 , 51 (1991).

  Traceability . To sue the White House officials, Hines had to identify a “causal connection” between the actions of those officials and her censorship. Bennett v. Spear , 520 U. S. 154 , 169 (1997). Hines did not need to prove that it was only because of those officials’ conduct that she was censored. Rather, as we held in Department of Commerce v. New York , 588 U. S. 752 (2019) , it was enough for her to show that one predictable effect of the officials’ action was that Facebook would modify its censorship policies in a way that affected her . Id ., at 768.

 Hines easily met that test, and her traceability theory is at least as strong as the State of New York’s in the Department of Commerce case. There, the State claimed that it would be hurt by a census question about citizenship. The State predicted that the question would dissuade some noncitizen households from complying with their legal duty to complete the form, and it asserted that this in turn could cause the State to lose a seat in the House of Representatives, as well as federal funds that are distributed on the basis of population. Id ., at 766–767. Although this theory depended on illegal conduct by third parties and an attenuated chain of causation, the Court found that the State had established traceability. It was enough, the Court held,  that the failure of some aliens to respond to the census was “likely attributable” to the Government’s introduction of a citizenship question. Id ., at 768.

 This is not a demanding standard, and Hines made the requisite showing—with room to spare. Recall that officials from the White House and Surgeon General’s Office repeatedly hectored and implicitly threatened Facebook to suppress speech expressing the viewpoint that Hines espoused. See supra , at 6–15. Censorship of Hines was the “predictable effect” of these efforts. Department of Commerce , 588 U. S., at 768. Or, to put the point in different terms, Facebook would “likely react in predictable ways” to this unrelenting pressure. Ibid .

 This alone was sufficient to show traceability, but here there is even more direct proof. On numerous occasions, the White House officials successfully pushed Facebook to tighten its censorship policies, see supra , at 7, 10, 13, and those policies had implications for Hines. 15 First, in March  2021, the White House pressured Facebook into implementing a policy of removing accounts that “disproportionately promot[e] . . . sensationalized content” about vaccines. Supra , at 7. Later that year, Facebook removed two of Hines’s groups, which posted about vaccines. Supra , at 15. And when Hines sued in August 2022, she reported that her personal page was “currently restricted” for sharing vaccine-related content and, thus, that she was “under constant threat of being completely deplatformed.” 4 Record 1314.

 Second, in May, Facebook told Slavitt that it would “se[t] up more dedicated monitoring” of vaccine content and apply demotions to “a broader set of content.” Supra , at 10. Then, a few weeks later, Facebook also increased demotions of posts by individual Facebook accounts that repeatedly shared misinformation. Ibid . Hines says that she was repeatedly fact-checked for posting about the vaccines, see supra , at 15–16; 4 Record 1314, so these policy changes apparently increased the risk that posts from her personal account would have been hidden from her friends’ Facebook feeds.

 Third, in response to the July 2021 comments from the White House and the Surgeon General, Facebook made more changes. Supra , at 13. And from the details Hines provides about her posting history, this policy change would have affected her. For one thing, Facebook “rendered ‘non-recommendable’ ” any page linked to another account that had been “removed” for spreading misinformation about COVID–19. 9 Record 2701. Hines says that two of her groups were removed for alleged COVID misinformation around this time. Supra , at 15; 4 Record 1315. So under the new policy, her other pages would apparently be non-recommendable. Perhaps for this reason, though Hines attempted to convince members of her deplatformed group to migrate to a substitute group, only about a quarter of its membership made the move before the substitute group too was removed. Ibid .

  For another, Facebook “increas[ed] the strength of [its] demotions for COVID and vaccine-related content that third party fact checkers rate[d] as ‘Partly False’ or ‘Missing Context.’ ” 9 id ., at 2701. And Facebook “ma[de] it easier to have Pages/Groups/Accounts demoted for sharing COVID and vaccine-related misinformation by . . . counting content removals” under Facebook’s COVID–19 policies “towards their demotion threshold.” Ibid. Under this new policy, Facebook would now consider Hines’s “numerous” community standards violations, 4 id ., at 1314, when determining whether to make her posts less accessible to other users. So, for instance, when Hines received several citations in early 2023, this amendment would have governed Facebook’s decision to “downgrad[e] the visibility of [her] posts in Facebook’s News Feed (thereby limiting its reach to other users).” 78 id ., at 25503. The record here amply shows traceability.

 The Court reaches the opposite conclusion by applying a new and heightened standard. The Court notes that Facebook began censoring COVID–19-related misinformation before officials from the White House and the Surgeon General’s Office got involved. Ante , at 20; see also Brief for Petitioners 18. And in the Court’s view, that fact makes it difficult to untangle Government-caused censorship from censorship that Facebook might have undertaken anyway. See ante , at 20. That may be so, but in the Department of Commerce census case, it also would have been difficult for New York to determine which noncitizen households failed to respond to the census because of a citizenship question and which had other reasons. Nevertheless, the Court did not require New York to perform that essentially impossible operation because it was clear that a citizenship question would dissuade at least some noncitizen households from responding. As we explained, “Article III ‘requires no more than de facto causality,’ ” so a showing that a citizenship question affected some aliens sufficed. Department of Commerce , 588 U. S., at 768.

 Here, it is reasonable to infer (indeed, the inference leaps out from the record) that the efforts of the federal officials affected at least some of Facebook’s decisions to censor Hines. All of Facebook’s demotion, content-removal, and deplatforming decisions are governed by its policies. 16 So when the White House pressured Facebook to amend some of the policies related to speech in which Hines engaged, those amendments necessarily impacted some of Facebook’s censorship decisions. Nothing more is needed. What the Court seems to want are a series of ironclad links—from a particular coercive communication to a particular change in Facebook’s rules or practice and then to a particular adverse action against Hines. No such chain was required in the Department of Commerce case, and neither should one be demanded here.

 In addition to this heightened linkage requirement, the Court argues that Hines lacks standing because the threat of future injury dissipated at some point during summer 2022 when the officials’ pressure campaign tapered off. Ante, at 25, n. 10. But this argument errs in two critical respects. First, the effects of the changes the officials coerced persisted. Those changes controlled censorship decisions before and after Hines sued.

 Second, the White House threats did not come with expiration dates, and it would be silly to assume that the threats lost their force merely because White House officials opted not to renew them on a regular basis. Indeed, the record suggests that Facebook did not feel free to chart its own course when Hines sued; rather, the platform had promised to continue reporting to the White House and remain responsive to its concerns for as long as the officials requested. Supra , at 14.

  In short, when Hines sued in August 2022, there was still a link between the White House and the injuries she was presently suffering and could reasonably expect to suffer in the future. That is enough for traceability.

  Redressability. Finally, Hines was required to show that the threat of future injury she faced when the complaint was filed “likely would be redressed” by injunctive relief. FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , 602 U. S. 367 , 380 (2024). This required proof that a preliminary injunction would reduce Hines’s “risk of [future] harm . . . to some extent .” Massachusetts v. EPA , 549 U. S. 497 , 526 (2007) (emphasis added). And as we recently explained, “[t]he second and third standing requirements—causation and redressability—are often ‘flip sides of the same coin.’ ” Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , 602 U. S., at 380. Therefore, “[i]f a defendant’s action causes an injury, enjoining the action or awarding damages for the action will typically redress that injury.” Id. , at 381.

 Hines easily satisfied that requirement. For the reasons just explained, there is ample proof that Hines’s past injuries were a “predictable effect” of the Government’s censorship campaign, and the preliminary injunction was likely to prevent the continuation of the harm to at least “some extent.” Massachusetts v. EPA , 549 U. S., at 526.

 The Court disagrees because Facebook “remain[s] free to enforce . . . even those [policies] tainted by initial governmental coercion.” Ante , at 26. But as with traceability, the Court applies a new and elevated standard for redressability, which has never required plaintiffs to be “ certain ” that a court order would prevent future harm. Larson v. Valente , 456 U. S. 228 , 243–244, n. 15 (1982). In Massachusetts v. EPA , for example, no one could say that the relief sought—reconsideration by the EPA of its decision not to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases—would actually  remedy the Commonwealth’s alleged injuries, such as the loss of land due to rising sea levels. The Court’s decision did not prevent the EPA from adhering to its prior decision, 549 U. S., at 534–535, and there was no way to know with any degree of certainty that any greenhouse gas regulations that the EPA might eventually issue would prevent the oceans from rising. Yet the Court found that the redressability requirement was met.

 Similarly, in Department of Commerce , no one could say with any certainty that our decision barring a censorship question from the 2020 census questionnaire would prevent New York from losing a seat in the House of Representatives, 588 U. S., at 767, and in fact that result occurred despite our decision. S. Goldmacher, New York Loses House Seat After Coming Up 89 People Short on Census, N. Y. Times, Apr. 26, 2021. 17

 As we recently proclaimed in FDA v . Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , Article III standing is an important component of our Constitution’s structural design. See 602 U. S., at 378–380. That doctrine is cheapened when the rules are not evenhandedly applied.

 Hines showed that, when she sued, Facebook was censoring her COVID-related posts and groups. And because the White House prompted Facebook to amend its censorship policies, Hines’s censorship was, at least in part, caused by the White House and could be redressed by an injunction against the continuation of that conduct. For these reasons, Hines met all the requirements for Article III standing.

 I proceed now to the merits of Hines’s First Amendment  claim. 18 Government efforts to “dictat[e] the subjects about which persons may speak,” First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti , 435 U. S. 765 , 784–785 (1978), or to suppress protected speech are “ ‘presumptively unconstitutional,’ ” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va. , 515 U. S. 819 , 830 (1995). And that is so regardless of whether the Government carries out the censorship itself or uses a third party “ ‘to accomplish what . . . is constitutionally forbidden.’ ” Norwood v. Harrison , 413 U. S. 455 , 465 (1973).

 As the Court held more than 60 years ago in Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan , 372 U. S. 58 (1963) , the Government may not coerce or intimidate a third-party intermediary into suppressing someone else’s speech. Id ., at 67. Earlier this Term, we reaffirmed that important principle in National Rifle Association v. Vullo , 602 U. S., at 187–191. As we said there, “a government official cannot do indirectly what she is barred from doing directly,” id ., at 190, and while an official may forcefully attempt to persuade, “[w]hat she cannot do . . . is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,” id ., at 188.

 In Vullo , the alleged conduct was blunt. The head of the state commission with regulatory authority over insurance companies allegedly told executives at Lloyd’s directly and in no uncertain terms that she would be “ ‘less interested’ ” in punishing the company’s regulatory infractions if it ceased doing business with the National Rifle Association. Id ., at 183. The federal officials’ conduct here was more  subtle and sophisticated. The message was delivered piecemeal by various officials over a period of time in the form of aggressive questions, complaints, insistent requests, demands, and thinly veiled threats of potentially fatal reprisals. But the message was unmistakable, and it was duly received.

 The principle recognized in Bantam Books and Vullo requires a court to distinguish between permissible persuasion and unconstitutional coercion, and in Vullo , we looked to three leading factors that are helpful in making that determination: (1) the authority of the government officials who are alleged to have engaged in coercion, (2) the nature of statements made by those officials, and (3) the reactions of the third party alleged to have been coerced. 602 U. S., at 189–190, and n. 4, 191–194. In this case, all three factors point to coercion.

 I begin with the authority of the relevant officials—high-ranking White House officials and the Surgeon General. High-ranking White House officials presumably speak for and may have the ability to influence the President, and as discussed earlier, a Presidential administration has the power to inflict potentially fatal damage to social media platforms like Facebook. See supra , at 5. Facebook appreciates what the White House could do, and President Biden has spoken openly about that power—as he has every right to do. For instance, he has declared that the “policy of [his] Administration [is] to enforce the antitrust laws to meet the challenges posed by . . . the rise of the dominant Internet platforms,” and he has directed the Attorney General and other agency heads to “enforce the antitrust laws . . . vigorously.” Promoting Competition in the American Economy, Executive Order No. 14036 , 3 CFR 609 (2021). 19 He has  also floated the idea of amending or repealing §230 of the Communications Decency Act. See, e . g ., B. Klein, White House Reviewing Section 230 Amid Efforts To Push Social Media Giants To Crack Down on Misinformation, CNN (July 20, 2021)  20 ; R. Kern, White House Renews Call To ‘Remove’ Section 230 Liability Shield, Politico (Sept. 8, 2022). 21

 Previous administrations have also wielded significant power over Facebook. In a data-privacy case brought jointly by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook was required “to pay an unprecedented $5 billion civil penalty,” which is “among the largest civil penalties ever obtained by the federal government.” Press Release, Dept. of Justice, Facebook Agrees To Pay $5 Billion and Implement Robust New Protections of User Information in Settlement of Data-Privacy Claims (July 24, 2019). 22

 A matter that may well have been prominent in Facebook’s thinking during the period in question in this case was a dispute between the United States and the European Union over international data transfers. In 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the mechanism for transferring data between the European Union and United States because it did not sufficiently protect EU citizens from Federal Government surveillance. Data Protection Comm’r v. Facebook Ireland Limited , Case C–311/18 (2020). The EU-U. S. conflict over data privacy hindered Facebook’s international operations, but Facebook could  not “resolve [the conflict] on its own.” N. Clegg & J. Newstead, Our Response to the Decision on Facebook’s EU-US Data Transfers, Meta (May 22, 2023). 23 Rather, the platform relied on the White House to negotiate an agreement that would preserve its ability to maintain its trans-Atlantic operations. K. Mackrael, EU Approves Data-Transfer Deal With U. S., Averting Potential Halt in Flows, Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2023. 24

 It is therefore beyond any serious dispute that the top-ranking White House officials and the Surgeon General possessed the authority to exert enormous coercive pressure.

 Second, I turn to of the officials’ communications with Facebook, which possess all the hallmarks of coercion that we identified in Bantam Books and Vullo . Many of the White House’s emails were “phrased virtually as orders,” Bantam Books , 372 U. S., at 68, and the officials’ frequent follow-ups ensured that they were understood as such, id ., at 63. To take a few examples, after Flaherty read an article about content causing vaccine hesitancy, he demanded “to know that [Facebook was] trying” to combat the issue and “to know that you’re not playing a shell game with us when we ask you what is going on.” 30 Record 9365; see supra , at 7. The next month, he requested “assurances, based in data,” that Facebook was not “making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse.” 30 Record 9371; see supra , at 7–8. A week after that, he questioned Facebook about its policies “for removal vs demoting,” and when the platform did not  promptly respond, he added: “These questions weren’t rhetorical.” 30 Record 9387; see supra , at 8. When Facebook provided the White House with some data it asked for, Flaherty thanked Facebook for demonstrating “that you at least understand the ask.” 30 Record 9368; see supra , at 7.

 Various comments during the July pressure campaign likewise reveal that the White House and the Surgeon General’s Office expected compliance. At the press conference announcing the Surgeon General’s recommendations related to misinformation, Psaki noted that the White House “engage[s] with [Facebook] regularly,” and Facebook “certainly understand[s] what our asks are.” Supra , at 11. The next day, she expressed confidence that Facebook would “make decisions about additional steps they can take.” 78 Record 25175; see supra , at 12. And eventually, the Surgeon General’s Office prompted Facebook for “an update of any new/additional steps you are taking with respect to health misinformation in light of ” the July 15 advisory. 9 Record 2703; see supra , at 13.

 These demands were coupled with “thinly veiled threats” of legal consequences. Bantam Books , 372 U. S., at 68. Three instances stand out. Early on, when the White House first expressed skepticism that Facebook was effectively combatting misinformation, Slavitt informed the platform that the White House was “considering our options on what to do about it.” 30 Record 9364; see supra , at 7. In other words, if Facebook did not “solve” its “misinformation” problem, the White House might unsheathe its potent authority. 30 Record 9364 .

 The threat was made more explicit in May, when Psaki paired a request for platforms to “ ‘stop amplifying untrustworthy content’ ” with a reminder that President Biden “ ‘supports . . . a robust anti-trust program.’ ” 78 id ., at 25170–25171 (emphasis deleted); May 5 Press Briefing; see also supra , at 9. The Government casts this reference to legal consequences as a defense of individual Americans  against censorship by the platforms. See Reply Brief 9. But Psaki’s full answer undermines that interpretation. Immediately after noting President Biden’s support for antitrust enforcement, Psaki added, “So his view is that there’s more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of . . . life-threatening information is not going out to the American public.” May 5 Press Briefing. The natural interpretation is that the White House might retaliate if the platforms allowed free speech, not if they suppressed it.

 Finally, in July, the White House asserted that the platforms “should be held accountable” for publishing misinformation. 61 Record 19400; see supra , at 11–13. The totality of this record—constant haranguing, dozens of demands for compliance, and references to potential consequences—evince “a scheme of state censorship.” Bantam Books , 372 U. S., at 72.

 The Government tries to spin these interactions as fairly benign. In its telling, Flaherty, Slavitt, and other officials merely “asked the platforms for information” and then “publicly and privately criticized the platforms for what the officials perceived as a . . . failure to live up to the platforms’ commitments.” Brief for Petitioners 31. References to consequences, the Government claims, were “fleeting and general” and “cannot plausibly be characterized as coercive threats.” Id ., at 32.

 This characterization is not true to what happened. Slavitt and Flaherty did not simply ask Facebook for information. They browbeat the platform for months and made it clear that if it did not do more to combat what they saw as misinformation, it might be called to account for its shortcomings. And as for the supposedly “fleeting” nature of the numerous references to potential consequences, death threats can be very effective even if they are not delivered every day.

  The Government also defends the officials’ actions on the ground that “[t]he President and his senior aides are entitled to speak out on such matters of pressing public concern.” Reply Brief 11. According to the Government, the officials were simply using the President’s “bully pulpit” to “inform, persuade, and protect the public.” Brief for Petitioners 5, 24.

 This argument introduces a new understanding of the term “bully pulpit,” which was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt to denote a President’s excellent ( i . e ., “bully”  25 ) position ( i . e ., his “pulpit”) to persuade the public. 26 But Flaherty, Slavitt, and other officials who emailed and telephoned Facebook were not speaking to the public from a figurative pulpit. On the contrary, they were engaged in a covert scheme of censorship that came to light only after the plaintiffs demanded their emails in discovery and a congressional Committee obtained them by subpoena. See Committee Report 1–2. If these communications represented the exercise of the bully pulpit, then everything that top federal officials say behind closed doors to any private citizen must also represent the exercise of the President’s bully pulpit. That stretches the concept beyond the breaking point.

 In any event, the Government is hard-pressed to find any prior example of the use of the bully pulpit to threaten censorship of private speech. The Government cites four instances in which past Presidents commented publicly about the performance of the media. President Reagan lauded the media for “tough reporting” on drugs. Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, Remarks to Media Executives at a  White House Briefing on Drug Abuse (Mar. 7, 1988). 27 But he never threatened to do anything to media outlets that were soft on the issue of drugs. President Theodore Roosevelt “lambasted ‘muck-raking’ journalists” as “ ‘one of the most potent forces for evil’ ” and encouraged journalists to speak truth, rather than slander. Brief for Petitioners 24 (quoting The American Presidency Project, Remarks at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the Office Building of the House of Representatives (Apr. 14, 1906)). 28 But his comment did not threaten any action against the muckrakers, see Goodwin 480–487, and it is unclear what he could have done to them. President George W. Bush denounced pornography as “debilitating” for “communities, marriages, families, and children.” Presidential Proclamation  No. 7725, 3 CFR 129 (2003 Comp.). But he never threatened to take action against pornography that was not “obscene” within the meaning of our precedents.

 The Government’s last example is a 1915 speech in which President Wilson deplored false reporting that the Japanese were using Turtle Bay, California, as a naval base. The American Presidency Project, Address at the Associated Press Luncheon in New York City (Apr. 20, 1915). 29 Speaking to a gathering of reporters, President Wilson proclaimed: “We ought not to permit that sort of thing to use up the electrical energy of the [telegraph] wires, because its energy is malign, its energy is not of the truth, its energy is mischief.” Ibid . Wilson’s comment is best understood as metaphorical and hortatory, not as a legal threat. And in any event, it is hard to see how he could have brought about censorship of telegraph companies because the Mann- Elkins Act, enacted in 1910, deemed them to be common carriers, and that meant that they were obligated to transmit all messages regardless of content. See 36 Stat. 544 –545; T. Wu, A Brief History of American Telecommunications Regulation, in 5 Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History 95 (2007). Thus, none of these examples justifies the conduct at issue here.

 Finally, Facebook’s responses to the officials’ persistent inquiries, criticisms, and threats show that the platform perceived the statements as something more than mere recommendations. Time and time again, Facebook responded to an angry White House with a promise to do better in the future. In March, Facebook attempted to assuage the White House by acknowledging “[w]e obviously have work to do to gain your trust.” 30 Record 9365. In April, Facebook promised to “more clearly respon[d] to [White House] questions.” Id ., at 9371. In May, Facebook “committed to addressing the defensive work around misinformation that you’ve called on us to address.” 9 id ., at 2698. In July, Facebook reached out to the Surgeon General after “the President’s remarks about us” and emphasized its efforts “to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.” Id ., at 2690. And of course, as we have seen, Facebook repeatedly changed its policies to better address the White House’s concerns. See supra , at 7, 10, 13.

 The Government’s primary response is that Facebook occasionally declined to take its suggestions. Reply Brief 11; see, e.g ., supra , at 10. The implication is that Facebook must have chosen to undertake all of its anti-misinformation efforts entirely of its own accord.

 That is bad logic, and in any event, the record shows otherwise. It is true that Facebook voluntarily undertook some anti-misinformation efforts and that it declined to make some requested policy changes. But the interactions recounted above unmistakably show that the White House was insistent that Facebook should do more than it was doing on its own, see, e.g ., supra , at 11–12, and Facebook repeatedly yielded—even if it did not always give the White House everything it wanted.

 Internal Facebook emails paint a clear picture of subservience. The platform quickly realized that its “handling of [COVID] misinformation” was “importan[t]” to the White House, so it looked for ways “to be viewed as a trusted, transparent partner” and “avoid . . . public spat[s].” Committee Report 181, 184, 188. After the White House blamed Facebook for aiding an insurrection, the platform realized that it was at a “crossroads . . . with the White House.” Id ., at 294. “Given what is at stake here,” one Facebook employee proposed reevaluating the company’s “internal methods” to “see what further steps we may/may not be able to take.” Id ., at 295. This reevaluation led to one of Facebook’s policy changes. See supra , at 8–10.

 Facebook again took stock of its relationship with the White House after the President’s accusation that it was “killing people.” Internally, Facebook saw little merit in many of the White House’s critiques. One employee labeled the White House’s understanding of misinformation “completely unclear” and speculated that “it’s convenient for them to blame us” “when the vaccination campaign isn’t going as hoped.” Committee Report 473. Nonetheless, Facebook figured that its “current course” of “in effect explaining ourselves more fully, but not shifting on where we draw the lines,” is “a recipe for protracted and increasing acrimony with the [White House].” Id ., at 573. “Given the bigger fish we have to fry with the Administration,” such as the EU-U. S. dispute over “data flows,” that did not “seem like a great place” for Facebook-White House relations “to be.” Ibid. So the platform was motivated to “explore some moves that we can make to show that we are trying to be  responsive.” Ibid . That brainstorming resulted in the August 2021 rule changes. See supra , at 13, 19–20.

 In sum, the officials wielded potent authority. Their communications with Facebook were virtual demands. And Facebook’s quavering responses to those demands show that it felt a strong need to yield.

 For these reasons, I would hold that Hines is likely to prevail on her claim that the White House coerced Facebook into censoring her speech.

 For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment , I respectfully dissent.

1  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Deaths by Week and State, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm (last accessed June 21, 2024).

2  This includes information about the origin of the COVID–19 virus. When the pandemic began, Facebook began demoting posts supporting the theory that the virus leaked from a laboratory. See Interim Staff Report of the House Judiciary Committee, The Censorship-Industrial Complex: How Top Biden White House Officials Coerced Big Tech To Censor Americans, True Information, and Critics of the Biden Administration, p. 398 (May 1, 2024) (Committee Report), https://judiciary. house.gov/sites/evo-subsites / republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf. “In February 2021, in response to . . . tense conversations with the new Administration,” Facebook changed its policy to instead remove posts about the lab leak theory wholesale. Ibid. ; accord, id ., at 463 (Facebook executive explained that the platform removed these posts “[b]ecause we were under pressure from the administration and others to do more and it was part of the ‘more’ package”). But since then, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy have found that the theory is probably correct. See, e . g ., A. Kaur & D. Diamond, FBI Director Says Covid–19 “Most Likely” Originated From Lab Incident, Washington Post (Feb. 28, 2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/28/fbi- director-christopher-wray-wuhan-lab; J. Herb & N. Bertrand, US Energy Department Assesses Covid–19 Likely Resulted From Lab Leak, Furthering US Intel Divide Over Virus Origin, CNN (Feb. 27, 2023), https: // www.cnn.com / 2023 /02/26/politics/covid-lab-leak-wuhan-china- intelligence/index.html. Facebook reversed its policy, and Mark Zuckerberg expressed regret that the platform had ever removed the posts: “This seems like a good reminder that when we compromise our standards due to pressure from an administration in either direction, we’ll often regret it later.” Committee Report 398.

3  See, e.g. , J. Liedke & L. Wang, News Platform Fact Sheet, Pew Research Center (Nov. 15, 2023), https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/ fact-sheet/news-platform-fact-sheet; A. Watson, Most Popular Platforms for Daily News Consumption in the United States as of August 2022, by Age Group, Statista (Jan. 4, 2024), https://www.statista.com/statistics/717651/most-popular-news-platforms.

4  C. Newton, Read the Full Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Leaked Internal Facebook Meetings, The Verge (Oct. 1, 2019), https://www. theverge.com/2019/10/1/20892354/mark-zuckerberg-full-transcript-leaked-facebook-meetings.

5  For pending or potential legislation affecting internet platforms, see Congressional Research Service, C. Cho, L. Zhu, & K. Busch, Defining and Regulating Online Platforms (Aug. 25, 2023), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47662/11.

6  E. Dwoskin, Massive Facebook Study on Users’ Doubt in Vaccines Finds a Small Group Appears To Play a Big Role in Pushing the Skepticism, Washington Post (Mar. 14, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost. com/technology/2021/03/14/facebook-vaccine-hesitancy-qanon.

7  Notes recounting these calls were released by the House Judiciary Committee after the District Court entered the preliminary injunction and were published in a Committee Report. See Committee Report; Fed. Rule Evid. 201 .

8  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/05/ 05/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-secretary-of-agriculture -tom-vilsack-may-5-2021.

9  https://about.fb.com/news/2021/05/taking-action-against-people-who-repeatedly-share-misinformation.

10  https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-misinformation-advisory.pdf.

11  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/07/ 15/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-surgeon-general-dr-vivek-h-murthy-july-15-2021.

12  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/07/ 16/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-july-16-2021.

13  https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/19/politics/joe-biden-facebook/index .html.

14  https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/1454181191494606854.

15  The Court discounts this evidence because Hines did not draw the same links in her briefing. See ante, at 20, n. 7. But we have an “independent obligation” to assess standing, Summers v. Earth Island Institute , 555 U. S. 488 , 499 (2009), and a “virtually unflagging obligation” to exercise our jurisdiction if standing exists, Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States , 424 U. S. 800 , 817 (1976). “[A] case like this one, where the record spans over 26,000 pages” and the plaintiffs have provided numerous facts, deserves some scrutiny before we simply brush standing aside. Ante, at 20, n. 7.  As it happens, Hines has said enough to establish standing. First, she says that, at the behest of the White House, Facebook announced new measures to combat misinformation about COVID–19 and the vaccines. Second, she says that her Facebook pages fell under those policies. Third, she says that she suffered the penalties imposed by Facebook, such as demotion of her posts and pages. See 4 Record 1315; 78 id ., at 25503. She may not explicitly say that the policy changes caused the penalties she experienced. But what theory makes more sense—that a user falling within Facebook’s amended policies was censored under those policies or that something else caused her injury?

16  See Meta, Policies, https://transparency.meta.com/policies (last accessed June 19, 2024).

17  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/nyregion/new-york-census-congress.html.

18  To obtain a preliminary injunction, Hines was required to establish that she is likely to succeed on the merits, that she would otherwise suffer irreparable harm, and that the equities cut in her favor. Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. , 555 U. S. 7 , 20 (2008). In a First Amendment case, the equities are bound up in the merits. See Elrod v. Burns , 427 U. S. 347 , 373 (1976) (plurality opinion) (“The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury”). So I focus on Hines’s likelihood of success.

19  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/ 2021/07/09/executive-order-on-promoting-competition-in-the-american-economy.

20  https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/20/politics/white-house-section-230-facebook/index.html.

21  https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/08/white-house-renews-call-to-remove-section-230-liability-shield-00055771.

22  https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/facebook-agrees-pay-5-billion-and-implement-robust-new-protections-user-information.

23  https://about.fb.com/news/2023/05/our-response-to-the-decision-on-facebooks-eu-us-data-transfers.

24  https://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-approves-data-transfer-deal-with-u-s-averting-potential-halt-in-flows-7a149c9.

25  Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language 191 (1902).

26  See D. Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, pp. xi–xii (2013) (Goodwin).

27  https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-media-ex ecutives-white-house-briefing-drug-abuse.

28  https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-laying-the-cornerstone-the-office-building-the-house-representatives-the-man.

29  https: // www.presidency.ucsb.edu / documents/address-the-associated- press-luncheon-new-york-city.