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).