The lat­est edi­tion of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s ​“Death Row USA” shows that the num­ber of peo­ple on the death row in the United States is con­tin­u­ing to decline, falling to 3,370 as of April 1, 2006. The size of death row increased every year between 1976 and 2000, but since then it has been in a slow decline.

According to the report, the states with the largest decrease in death row pop­u­la­tion since January 1, 2006 are Texas (down by 5) and South Carolina (down by 3). California con­tin­ues to have the nation’s largest death row pop­u­la­tion (652), fol­lowed by Texas (404), Florida (392), Pennsylvania (232), and Ohio (195).

Nationally, the racial com­po­si­tion of those on death row is 45% white, 42% black, and 10% latino/​latina. Of juris­dic­tions with more than 10 peo­ple on death row, Texas (69%) and Pennsylvania (69%) con­tin­ue to have the largest per­cent­age of minorites on death row. Nearly 80% of the vic­tims in crimes that result­ed in exe­cu­tions were white.

Death Row USA is pub­lished quar­ter­ly by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The report con­tains the lat­est death row pop­u­la­tion fig­ures, exe­cu­tion sta­tis­tics, and an overview of the most recent legal devel­op­ments relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. These death row sta­tis­tics may dif­fer slight­ly from those com­piled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics because of a dif­fer­ence in methodologies.


See Death Row USA, April 1, 2006. See also DPIC’s Death Row.

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