Fueled by at least 16 COVID-19 deaths and a record-low num­ber of new death sen­tences caused by the can­ce­la­tion or post­pone­ment of cap­i­tal tri­als, the pop­u­la­tion of U.S. death row dipped 3.4% in the year span­ning October 2019 through September 2020, accord­ing to the lat­est quar­ter­ly death-row cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF).

The Death Penalty Information Center’s analy­sis of the Fall 2020 edi­tion of LDF’s Death Row USA—released in mid-December 2020 — found that 86 few­er men and women were sen­tenced to death or sub­ject to the death penal­ty in cap­i­tal retri­als or resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings on October 1, 2020 than at the same time in 2019. LDF report­ed that 2,553 pris­on­ers or defen­dants who had been sen­tenced to death faced con­tin­u­ing jeop­ardy of exe­cu­tion, down from the 2,639 report­ed one year ear­li­er. Death row declined by 38 pris­on­ers in the three months between July 1 and September 30, the largest quar­ter­ly decline since January 2017. 

The num­ber of peo­ple on death row or fac­ing poten­tial cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ings has declined by 30.1% per­cent since the turn of the cen­tu­ry. LDF report­ed 3,652 peo­ple on death row or fac­ing cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing on January 1, 2000, 1,099 more than face jeop­ardy of exe­cu­tion today. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has report­ed that the death-row pop­u­la­tion in the U.S. has declined every year since 2001, with the num­ber of for­mer death-row pris­on­ers resen­tenced to life or less or exon­er­at­ed out­strip­ping the num­ber of new death sentences imposed. 

The num­ber of U.S. pris­on­ers fac­ing active death sen­tences fell even more sharply in the third quar­ter of 2020, with COVID deaths con­tribut­ing to a 40-per­son decline. A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of LDF’s death-row count found that 227 indi­vid­u­als whose con­vic­tions or death sen­tences had been reversed were await­ing retri­al, resen­tenc­ing, or com­ple­tion of the appeals process. That left 2,326 pris­on­ers fac­ing active death sen­tences, 81 few­er (a 3.4% decrease) than the 2,407 death sen­tences that were active October 1, 2019.

The per­cent­age of the nation’s death-row pris­on­ers incar­cer­at­ed in states that have for­mal mora­to­ria on exe­cu­tions again fell frac­tion­al­ly from 34.5% to 34.4%, pri­mar­i­ly as a result of the COVID-19 out­break that killed 13 pris­on­ers on California​’s death row. As of October 1, 877 peo­ple were on death rows or fac­ing cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing in the three remain­ing mora­to­ri­um states: California, Pennsylvania, and Oregon. Subtracting the cas­es in mora­to­ri­um states and the cas­es in which con­vic­tions or death sen­tences have been over­turned, LDF found that there were 1,496 cur­rent­ly enforce­able death sen­tences in the coun­try, the first time in decades the num­ber has been that low. The per­cent­age of the nation’s death-row pris­on­ers who do not have active and enforce­able death sen­tences held steady at 41.4%.

California’s death row remains the largest in the nation, with 711 pris­on­ers, though it declined by 13. Florida was next (347), fol­lowed by Texas (210), Alabama (170), Pennsylvania (142), and North Carolina (141). Nationwide, the death row pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ues to reflect racial dis­par­i­ties in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. 42.2% of death-row pris­on­ers were white, 41.6% were Black, 13.4% Latinx, 1.8% Asian, and 0.9% were Native American. Among states with at least 10 pris­on­ers on death row, Nebraska (75%), Texas (73%), and Louisiana (72%) remained the states that had the high­est per­cent­age of racial and eth­nic minori­ties. Two per­cent of all death-row pris­on­ers are women.

Tags
Citation Guide
Sources

Deborah Fins, Death Row USA: Fall 2020, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., December 2020.