DPI Page: Conditions on Death Row
Includes information such as the length of time prisoners spend on death row
DPI Page: Racial Demographics
Racial demographics of death-row prisoners
DPI Report: The 2% Death Penalty
How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All
DPI Page: Sentencing Data
Information on new death sentences
* Figures include persons whose death sentences have been overturned but who still face the possibility of being re-sentenced to death after a new trial or new sentencing hearing. The number of prisoners in the U.S. facing active death sentences is lower.
** The state-by-state total of individuals on death row is greater than the national total because three prisoners are sentenced to death in two different states.
“I miss the stars. You know, I haven’t seen the stars in years and years and years. I miss the rain. I miss food. I miss all these things. But what it comes down to the most — and this is the thing that will scar me the most and that I’ll carry with me as a scar the longest — the thing I miss the most is being treated like a human being.”
News & Developments
News
May 22, 2023
Death Row USA Summer 2022 Report: Death-Row Population Continues Long-Term Decline
The number of people sentenced to death or facing the possibility of a death sentence in pending capital retrial or resentencing proceedings continued its more than two-decade decline in the third quarter of last year, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) Summer 2022 quarterly census of death rows across the United States. In its recently issued Summer 2022 edition of Death Row USA (DRUSA), LDF reported that the number of people on U.S. state, federal, or military…
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Sep 02, 2022
Spring 2022 Death Row USA: 11 State Death Rows Decrease in Size as Nationwide Erosion of Capital Punishment Continues in First Quarter of 2022
The nationwide erosion of the death penalty in the United States continued in the quarter of 2022, as the death rows of eleven states decreased in size and no state or federal death row grew larger, according to the Legal Defense Fund’s Spring 2022 Death Row USA (DRUSA) report on capital punishment. Overall, the number of people sentenced to death in the United States or facing continuing jeopardy of execution in pending capital retrial or resentencing proceedings on April 1, 2022 fell by 22…
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News
Mar 14, 2022
Winter 2022 Death Row USA: State Death Rows Drop Below 2,400 For First Time Since 1990
The number of people sentenced to death or facing continuing jeopardy of execution in pending capital retrial or resentencing proceedings in U.S. states has dropped below 2,400 for the first time since 1990, a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) data has shown. In its Winter 2022 edition of Death Row USA (DRUSA), released in late February of 2022, LDF reported that the number of people on state death rows or facing possible capital…
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News
Feb 09, 2022
Death Row USA Fall 2021 Report: Death-Row Population Continues Long-Term Decline
The number of people sentenced to death or facing continuing jeopardy of execution in pending capital retrial or resentencing proceedings continued its more than two-decade decline in the third quarter of 2021, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) Fall 2021 quarterly census of death rows across the United States. In its Fall 2021 edition of Death Row USA (DRUSA), released February 7, 2022, LDF reported that the number of people on state, federal, or military death…
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News
Dec 29, 2021
Death Row USA Summer 2021 Report: Fewest Death-Sentenced Prisoners in Three Decades Face Continuing Jeopardy of Execution
Fewer people were on death rows across the United States as of July 1, 2021 or faced continuing jeopardy of execution in pending capital retrial or resentencing proceedings than at any other time in more than three decades, according to data compiled by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and analyzed by the Death Penalty Information Center. In its Summer 2021 edition of Death Row USA (DRUSA), released December 17, 2021, LDF reported that the number of people on state, federal…
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