Spring 2019 ​“Death Row USA” Documents Further Shrinking of U.S. Death-Row Population

The num­ber of peo­ple on death row or fac­ing cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing in the United States has con­tin­ued its 19-year decline, accord­ing to a new death-row cen­sus by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). The Spring 2019 edi­tion of Death Row USA, released in ear­ly July, reports that 2,673 peo­ple in 32 states or in U.S. fed­er­al or mil­i­tary cus­tody were on death rows across the U.S. as of April 1, 2019. That total reflects a 2.6% drop from the same time in 2018 and an 18.6% decline over the course of the past decade. The decline has come at a time in which exe­cu­tions remain near his­toric lows, as more peo­ple have been resen­tenced to life or less or come off of death row by exon­er­a­tion, clemen­cy, or deaths oth­er than by exe­cu­tion than have been added to death row through new death sen­tences. Nearly 1,000 pris­on­ers have come off death row in the past decade by means oth­er than exe­cu­tion, near­ly tripling the 337 exe­cu­tions over that same period.

LDF includes in its total 230 peo­ple who have over­turned their con­vic­tions or sen­tences in the courts but still face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing their sen­tences rein­stat­ed on appeal or reim­posed after new tri­al or sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings. The oth­er 2,443 peo­ple in the death-row cen­sus face active death sen­tences, con­tin­u­ing the decline in the num­ber of pris­on­ers in cur­rent jeop­ardy of exe­cu­tion. April 2018 was the first time in more than a quar­ter cen­tu­ry that the num­ber of active death sen­tences fell below 2,500.

For the first time, the LDF cen­sus offered a count of indi­vid­u­als on death rows in states with mora­to­ria on exe­cu­tions (California, Colorado, Oregon, and Pennsylvania). Death Row USA reports that 923 peo­ple, or 34.5% of all U.S. death-row pris­on­ers, are in these states. Excluding these states and the indi­vid­u­als whose con­vic­tions or death sen­tences have been over­turned, 1,570 death-row pris­on­ers in the United States have what LDF describes as ​“enforce­able sentences.”

California’s death row remains the largest in the nation, with 733 pris­on­ers. Florida (349), Texas (225), Alabama (181), and Pennsylvania (155) are also among the five largest state death rows. Nationwide, the death row pop­u­la­tion is about 42% white, 42% black, 13% Latino/​a, 2% Asian, and 1% Native American. Among states with at least 10 pris­on­ers, the high­est per­cent­ages of racial and eth­nic minori­ties were in Nebraska (75%), Texas (73%), and Louisiana (71%). Just 2% of all death-row pris­on­ers are women.