Size of Death Row by Year

The size of death row in the United States has declined every year since 2001. Currently, 2,241 men and women are on state or federal death rows across the United States or face the possibility of being resentenced to death in new death penalty trials (the total population is now at its lowest number since 1989). That number is down by more than a quarter from a peak of nearly 3,600 at the turn of the 21st century, with a 17% decrease over the course of the decade from April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2018. The number of prisoners facing active death sentences in the United States — that is, whose death sentences have not been overturned in the courts — has also fallen sharply. In the Spring of 2018, it dropped below 2,500 for the first time in more than a quarter century. The yearly decline in the size of death row has consistently exceeded the number of executions carried out, 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.

Size of Death Row (1968 – present)

Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics: “Capital Punishment” for Years 1968—2016
*NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. “Death Row USA” for Years 2017-2023 (sources use slightly different criteria for counting death-row prisoners).