Death Row Prisoners by State
Total Number of Death-Row Prisoners* as of October 1, 2020: 2,557
State | Number of Prisoners |
---|
California | 711 |
Florida | 347 |
Texas | 210 |
Alabama | 170 |
Pennsylvania | 142 |
North Carolina | 141 |
Ohio | 141 |
Arizona | 119 |
Nevada | 70 |
Louisiana | 68 |
U.S. Fed. Gov't. | 55 |
Tennessee | 51 |
Oklahoma | 45 |
Georgia | 45 |
Mississippi | 42 |
South Carolina | 39 |
Arkansas | 31 |
Kentucky | 28 |
Oregon | 24 |
Missouri | 22 |
Nebraska | 12 |
Kansas | 10 |
Indiana | 8 |
Idaho | 8 |
Utah | 7 |
U.S. Military | 4 |
Virginia | 2 |
Montana | 2 |
New Hampshire | 1 |
South Dakota | 1 |
Wyoming | 1 |
Source: Death Row Population Figures from NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. “Death Row USA” (October, 2020).
* 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. Four prisoners on on death row 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).
News & Developments
Jan 28, 2020
Fall 2019 “Death Row USA” Shows Continuing Death-Row Decline
Death row and the number of prisoners facing active death sentences in the U.S. continue to decline, according to the latest quarterly survey of death row by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). The Fall 2019…