The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row USA shows an 8% decline in the country’s death row population during the past 5 years, down from 3,652 in 2000 to 3,373 at the end of 2005. According to the report, California continues to have the nation’s largest death row population (649), followed by Texas (409), Florida (388), Pennsylvania (231), and Ohio (196).


Nationally, the racial composition of those on death row is 45% white, 42% black, and 10% latino/latina. Of states with more than 10 people on death row, Texas (70%) and Pennsylvania (69%) continue to have the largest percentage of minorites on death row. Eighty percent of the victims in the crimes that resulted in executions were white.


Death Row USA is released 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, January 1, 2006. See also DPIC’s Death Row.

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