For the first time in more than a quar­ter cen­tu­ry, few­er than 2,500 pris­on­ers across the United States now face active death sen­tences. According to the lat­est Death Row USA nation­al cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), released in ear­ly September 2018, 2,743 peo­ple were on death rows in 32 states and the U.S. fed­er­al and mil­i­tary death rows on April 1, 2018. That total includes 249 peo­ple who were pre­vi­ous­ly sen­tenced to death but face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing after a new tri­al or new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing and pris­on­ers whose cap­i­tal con­vic­tions or death sen­tences have been reversed, but whose rever­sals are still sub­ject to appeal by the state. 2,494 oth­er pris­on­ers face active death sen­tences. The Spring 2018 death-row cen­sus reflects that death row has declined by 100 from the 2,843 report­ed on death row as of April 1, 2017, and by 17% over the course of the last decade. The over­all decline in the num­ber of peo­ple on death rows across the coun­try is greater than the num­ber of exe­cu­tions in that peri­od, mean­ing that more for­mer death-row pris­on­ers have been resen­tenced to life or less after over­turn­ing their death sen­tences, died from non-exe­cu­tion caus­es, or been exon­er­at­ed than have been added to the row with new death sen­tences. California (740), Florida (354), and Texas (235) remain the nation’s largest death rows. Of the juris­dic­tions with at least 10 peo­ple on death row, those with the high­est per­cent­age of racial minori­ties are Texas, Louisiana, and Nebraska, each at 73%. The last time LDF record­ed few­er than 2,500 pris­on­ers fac­ing active death sen­tences in the United States was in January 1993, when the Winter 1992 Death Row USA report­ed that 2,483 of the 2,676 men and women then on death row had active death sentences. 

(NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Death Row USA Spring 2018, April 1, 2018.) See Death Row and Studies.

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