Race of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976

National Statistics on the Death Penalty and Race

Execution information accurate as of October 13, 2017 following an execution in Texas.

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

BLACK	503	34.5%
LATINO	120	8.3%
WHITE	816	55.6%
OTHER	23	1.6%

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 chart 1

Race of Victims Since 1976

BLACK	328	15.3%
LATINO	149	6.9%
WHITE	1624	75.6%
OTHER	45	2.1%

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.

Race of Victim Figures up to 7/1/2016 from NAACP-LDF "Death Row USA (July 1, 2016)" in addition to DPIC data.

race chart 2

"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

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 (20)

Black Defendant / White Victim (288)

Executions for Interracial Murders

Current U.S. Death Row Population by Race

BLACK	1184	41.65%
LATINO	375	13.19%
WHITE	1205	42.38%
OTHER	79	2.78%

Death Row Population Figures from NAACP-LDF "Death Row USA (April 1, 2017)"

Current Death Row Populations by Race
as of April 1, 2017

State	Total	Black	White	Latino	Native Amer.	Asian	Unknown
Alabama	193	102	88	2	0	1	0
Arizona	124	16	75	27	3	3	0
Arkansas	36	20	15	1	0	0	0
California	744	269	249	188	9	29	0
Colorado	3	3	0	0	0	0	0
Delaware	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Florida	386	148	206	29	1	2	0
Georgia	62	32	27	3	0	0	0
Idaho	8	0	8	0	0	0	0
Indiana	12	3	9	0	0	0	0
Kansas	10	3	7	0	0	0	0
Kentucky	33	5	28	0	0	0	0
Louisiana	75	50	21	3	0	1	0
Mississippi	49	26	21	1	0	1	0
Missouri	25	9	16	0	0	0	0
Montana	2	0	2	0	0	0	0
Nebraska	10	2	3	5	0	0	0
Nevada	81	31	39	9	0	2	0
New Hampshire	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
New Mexico	2	0	2	0	0	0	0
North Carolina	154	79	62	5	7	1	0
Ohio	143	78	60	3	0	2	0
Oklahoma	47	21	22	2	2	0	0
Oregon*	33	2	26	3	1	0	1
Pennsylvania	169	89	62	15	0	3	0
South Carolina	42	23	18	1	0	0	0
South Dakota	3	0	3	0	0	0	0
Tennessee	62	29	30	1	0	2	0
Texas	247	109	65	68	0	5	0
Utah	9	1	5	2	1	0	0
Virginia	6	3	4	0	0	0	0
Washington	8	4	5	0	0	0	0
Wyoming	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
US Gov’t	62	27	26	7	1	1	0
US Military	5	2	3	0	0	0	0

* One member of Death Row's race is not currently identified

(In this table, the total of inmates on death row will be slightly higher than the national total of 2,843 because some inmates were sentenced to death in more than one state and hence will be counted twice.)

Figures from NAACP-LDF "Death Row USA (April 1, 2017)"

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