The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA showed a continuing decline in the number of people on death rows across the country. As of January 1, 2013, there were 3,125 inmates under a sentence of death, a decrease of 43 from a year ago. Over the last decade, the size of death row has dropped almost 16%, from 3,703 inmates in 2000 to 3,125 in 2013. California continued to have the largest death row population (727), followed by Florida (413), Texas (300), and Pennsylvania (202). Neither California nor Pennsylvania has carried out an execution in at least 7 years. In Texas, minorities constitute 71% of the death row population. The report also contains information on executions. Nearly 77% of the murder victims in cases resulting in an execution since 1976 were white, even though nationally, about 50% of murder victims are black.
