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.

(NAACP Legal Defense Fund, ​“Death Row USA,” January 1, 2013, post­ed May 1, 2013). See also Death Row and Studies. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast about death row.

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