For in-depth analy­sis, view DPIC’s Report: The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All.

INTRODUCTION

Although 28 states autho­rize the death penal­ty, it is actu­al­ly car­ried out by only a small per­cent­age of juris­dic­tions. Fewer than 2% of coun­ties in the U.S. account for more than half of the nation’s death-row pop­u­la­tion and more than 4/​5ths of U.S. coun­ties have no one on death row. Fewer than 2% of U.S. coun­ties also account for more than half of all exe­cu­tions car­ried out across the coun­try since the Supreme Court upheld the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in 1976 and more than 80% of U.S. coun­ties haven’t exe­cut­ed any­one in that time.

There are clear geo­graph­ic dif­fer­ences in death penal­ty usage across the coun­try and with­in indi­vid­ual states. From the time exe­cu­tions resumed in 1977 through April 2020, 82% of all exe­cu­tions in the United States have tak­en place in the South. From January 2015 through April 2020, just 5 states — Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Missouri — car­ried out 83% of all U.S. exe­cu­tions. Even with­in a state, the death penal­ty is usu­al­ly pur­sued in only a hand­ful of coun­ties, though the expense is often shared by all taxpayers.

The Death Penalty Information Center has ana­lyzed the use of the death penal­ty at the coun­ty lev­el, examining:

A. Executions By County

B. Death-Row Prisoners By County

C. Recent Death Sentences By County

The graph­ics on this and relat­ed pages illus­trate the geo­graph­i­cal dis­par­i­ties in the use of the death penal­ty across the United States.

A. Executions by County

Total Number of Counties in the U.S. = 3,143 (source: U.S. Census Bureau)

Just 15 coun­ties account for more than 30% of the exe­cu­tions in the U.S. since 1976. They rep­re­sent less than 0.5% of the total num­ber of coun­ties in the coun­try, and less than 1% of the total num­ber of coun­ties in states with the death penalty.

Related:

  • Executions by County
  • Execution Database, sortable by county

B. Death-Row Prisoners by County

DPIC has iden­ti­fied the coun­ty in which every pris­on­er cur­rent­ly on death row was sen­tenced to death. The map below is based on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s ​“Death Row USA” list of pris­on­ers on death row as of April 1, 2021. It includes all per­sons then sen­tenced to death in the United States, plus defen­dants whose con­vic­tions or death sen­tences had been over­turned on appeal but who still faced the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing their death sen­tence reim­posed in lat­er court proceedings.

Nearly 30% of the entire nation­al death-row pop­u­la­tion as of January 2020 was sen­tenced to death in just 10 coun­ties. Collectively, they com­prise few­er than 0.3% of all the coun­ties in the United States and few­er than 0.5% of all the coun­ties in states that cur­rent­ly autho­rize the death penal­ty. Six of these coun­ties are in states in which gov­er­nors have imposed mora­to­ria on executions.

Related:

  • Death Row
  • Death Row by County
  • Death Row, USA, from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Download a spread­sheet of coun­ty data for all on death row as of January 1, 2013.

C. Recent Death Sentences by County

Recent death-sen­tenc­ing prac­tices illus­trate the con­tin­u­ing impact of a tiny num­ber of coun­ties on the US death penal­ty. Just 10 coun­ties — again, few­er than 0.3% of the nation’s coun­ties — account­ed for near­ly 1/​3 of all new death sen­tences imposed in the United States between January 2013 and December 2019.

Related:

Additional Links: