Size of Death Row by Year

The size of death row in the United States has declined every year since 2001. As of January 2026, 2,004 men and women are facing active death sentences — that is, their death sentences have not been overturned in the courts — on state or federal death rows across the United States. More than 100 additional individuals face the possibility of being resentenced to death in new death penalty trials. The total population of death row is down by more than a third from a peak of nearly 3,600 at the turn of the 21^st 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 – 2026 (sources use slightly different criteria for counting death-row prisoners).