Death Row Overview

DPIC Page: Conditions on Death Row
Includes information such as the length of time prisoners spend on death row

DPIC Page: Racial Demographics
Racial demographics of death-row prisoners

DPIC Report: The 2% Death Penalty
How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All

DPIC Page: Sentencing Data
Information on new death sentences

Death Row Prisoners by State

Total Number of Death-Row Prisoners* as of October 1, 2018: 2,721

State	Number of Prisoners
California	740
Florida	354
Texas	228
Alabama	182
Pennsylvania	158
North Carolina	143
Ohio	142
Arizona	121
Nevada	76
Louisiana	70
U.S. Fed. Gov't.	62
Tennessee	61
Georgia	56
Oklahoma	48
Mississippi	46
South Carolina	39
Oregon	33
Arkansas	32
Kentucky	31
Missouri	25
Nebraska	12
Indiana	11
Kansas	10
Utah	9
Idaho	9
Washington	8
U.S. Military	4
Colorado	3
South Dakota	3
Virginia	3
Montana	2
New Mexico**	2
New Hampshire	1
Wyoming	1

Source: Death Row Population Figures from NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. “Death Row USA” (October 1, 2018).

* 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.

** New Mexico repealed the death penalty in March 2009, but the law was not made retroactive. 2 remain on death row.

“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).