The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s ​“Death Row, USA” reports that the num­ber of peo­ple on death row in the United States has con­tin­ued to decline, falling to 3,344 as of October 1, 2006. The size of death row has been declin­ing since 2000 after 25 years of steady increas­es. For the first time in many years, Florida (398) sur­passed Texas (392) in the size of its deathrow. California (657) con­tin­ued to have the largest death row.


Nationally, the racial com­po­si­tion of those on death row is 45% white, 42% black, and 11% Latino/​Latina. Of juris­dic­tions with more than 10 peo­ple on death row, Texas (69%) and Pennsylvania (70%) con­tin­ue to have the largest per­cent­age of minori­ties on death row. Nearly 80% of the mur­der vic­tims in the crimes that result­ed in exe­cu­tions were white. (Generally, only about 48% of mur­der vic­tims are white.)


Death Row, USA is pub­lished quar­ter­ly and con­tains the names and race of every­one on death row, exe­cu­tion sta­tis­tics, and an overview of recent Supreme Court deci­sions relat­ed to capital punishment.

(NAACP Legal Defense Fund, ​“Death Row, USA, Fall 2006” October 1, 2006) (should be post­ed soon). See Death Row and DPIC’s 2006 Year End Report for a dis­cus­sion of the over­all decline in the use of the death penalty.

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