Death Row Prisoners by State
Total Number of Death-Row Prisoners* as of July 1, 2019: 2,656
State | Number of Prisoners |
---|
California | 729 |
Florida | 348 |
Texas | 224 |
Alabama | 177 |
Pennsylvania | 154 |
North Carolina | 144 |
Ohio | 140 |
Arizona | 122 |
Nevada | 74 |
Louisiana | 69 |
U.S. Fed. Gov't. | 61 |
Tennessee | 56 |
Georgia | 51 |
Oklahoma | 46 |
Mississippi | 44 |
South Carolina | 40 |
Oregon | 32 |
Arkansas | 32 |
Kentucky | 30 |
Missouri | 24 |
Nebraska | 12 |
Kansas | 10 |
Indiana | 9 |
Utah | 8 |
Idaho | 8 |
U.S. Military | 4 |
Colorado | 3 |
Virginia | 3 |
South Dakota | 2 |
Montana | 2 |
New Hampshire | 1 |
Wyoming | 1 |
Source: Death Row Population Figures from NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. “Death Row USA” (July, 2019).
* 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. Four prisoners on on death row 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.”
—CNN interview with Damien Echols on Arkansas death row since 1993
(Jan. 13, 2011) (released August 2011).
News & Developments
May 08, 2018
NEW RESOURCES: BJS Releases “Capital Punishment, 2016”
The nation’s death rows continue to shrink more rapidly than new defendants are being sentenced to death, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) statistical brief, “Capital Punishment, 2016,” released April 30, 2018. …