The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row, USA showed a continuing decline in the size of the death row population. The new total of 3,035 represented a 13% drop from 10 years earlier, when the death row population was 3,471. The racial demographics of death row have been steady, with white inmates making up 43% of death row, black inmates composing 42%, and Latino inmates 13%. California continued to have the largest death row, with 745 inmates, followed by Florida (404), Texas (276), Alabama (198), and Pennsylvania (188). Arkansas, which last carried out an execution nearly nine years ago, had a 13% decrease in its death row population since last year. The report also contains information about executions. Since 1976, 10% (143) of those executed were defendants who gave up their appeals.
