Executions Overview

Executions by Race and Race of Victim

“In 82% of the stud­ies [reviewed], race of the vic­tim was found to influ­ence the like­li­hood of being charged with cap­i­tal mur­der or receiv­ing the death penal­ty, i.e., those who mur­dered whites were found more like­ly to be sen­tenced to death than those who murdered blacks.” 

– United States General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing, February 1990

Race of Defendants Executed in the U.S. Since 1976

NOTE: The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment counts some cat­e­gories, such as Hispanics, as an eth­nic group rather than a race. DPIC refers to all groups as races because the sources for much of our infor­ma­tion use these categories.

Race of Victims Since 1976

NOTE: Number of Victims refers to the vic­tims in the under­ly­ing mur­der in cas­es where an exe­cu­tion has occurred since the restora­tion of the death penal­ty in 1976. There are more vic­tims than exe­cu­tions because some cas­es involve more than one victim.

Persons Executed for Interracial Murders in the U.S. Since 1976

The cas­es rep­re­sent­ed here are cas­es of one defen­dant exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of one or more vic­tims of one race. Cases involv­ing mul­ti­ple vic­tims of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent races are not included here.

White Defendant /​Black Victim (21)

Black Defendant /​White Victim (299)