Around 2,400 prisoners currently face execution in the United States. The national death-row population has declined for 20 consecutive years, as sentence reversals, executions, and deaths by other causes are outpacing 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 four 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.”
—CNN interview with Damien Echols on Arkansas death row since 1993 (Jan. 13, 2011) (released August 2011).
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