Death penalty statistics in the United States show a punishment in long-term retreat. Executions peaked at 98 in 1999 and have mostly run under 30 per year since 2007, with 25 carried out in 2024 and a jump to 47 in 2025. New death sentences have fallen more than 90 percent from their mid-1990s high of over 300 a year, landing at 23 in 2025. About 2,100 people remain under a sentence of death across 26 states and the federal system, and the average inmate waits nearly 19 years before execution. Since 1973, at least 202 death-sentenced prisoners have been exonerated.
Executions Per Year Since 1976
Capital punishment resumed in 1977 after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Gregg v. Georgia reestablished the legal framework for death sentences.1Justia. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 Annual executions climbed through the 1980s and 1990s and peaked in 1999, when 98 people were executed across 20 states, the highest single-year total since 1951.2Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 1999
The count fell sharply after that. It dropped below 50 by 2007 and often sat under 30 in the years that followed. Nine states carried out a combined 25 executions in 2024.3Death Penalty Information Center. The Death Penalty in 2024
Then 2025 broke the recent pattern with 47 executions nationally. Part of that jump reflects the federal government lifting its moratorium on federal executions, which had been in place since mid-2021.4Department of Justice. Reviving the Federal Death Penalty and Lifting the Moratorium on Federal Executions Even with that spike, the number remains well below the late-1990s levels, when annual totals routinely exceeded 70.
Three forces push the long-term decline. Eighth Amendment rulings have narrowed who qualifies for execution.5Constitution Annotated. Amdt8.4.9.9 Non-Homicide Offenses and Death Penalty Litigation over lethal injection protocols has caused years-long delays in some states. And 23 states have abolished the death penalty entirely, with Washington (2023) and Virginia (2021) the most recent.6Death Penalty Information Center. State by State Several additional states keep the death penalty on the books but have not carried out an execution in at least five years.7Death Penalty Information Center. Death Penalty on Hold in Most of the Country
New Death Sentences Have Collapsed
The number of people sentenced to death each year has fallen even faster than the execution count. In the mid-1990s, courts handed down more than 300 death sentences annually.8Death Penalty Information Center. History of the Death Penalty By the 2020s, that figure had fallen below 30. Courts imposed 26 new death sentences in 2024 and 23 in 2025.9Death Penalty Information Center. The Death Penalty in 2025 – New Death Sentences
Life without parole is now available in every death-penalty state, giving juries a severe alternative that avoids the prolonged appeals process unique to capital cases. Capital trials can run more than four times as long as non-capital trials, consuming court resources, expert-witness fees, and years of attorney time.10Death Penalty Information Center. Costs Many district attorneys have concluded that the cost and uncertainty do not justify the marginal difference in outcome, since most defendants sentenced to death end up serving what amounts to a life sentence while their appeals run.
Death Row Population and Time Served
At the end of 2023, 26 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons held 2,192 people under a sentence of death, down 3 percent from the prior year and well below the peak around the year 2000.11Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables Current estimates place the figure near 2,100. Even as new sentences dry up, the overall population declines slowly because inmates leave only through execution, natural death, resentencing, or commutation.
The waiting period is extraordinary. As of 2020, the average time spent under a death sentence before execution was nearly 19 years. Inmates still on death row at the end of that year had been there for an average of 19.4 years, and more than half had been waiting longer than 18 years.12Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2020 – Statistical Tables For many, a death sentence effectively becomes a life sentence in higher-security conditions while legal proceedings continue.
The federal death row is counted separately. The federal government carried out 13 executions during 2020 and early 2021 before imposing its moratorium, which was lifted in 2025.4Department of Justice. Reviving the Federal Death Penalty and Lifting the Moratorium on Federal Executions
Who Is on Death Row
The racial composition has stayed remarkably stable even as the total population shrinks. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2023 report, non-Hispanic White inmates account for about 43 percent of the death row population, non-Hispanic Black inmates about 40 percent, and Hispanic inmates about 14 percent, with smaller numbers of American Indian, Asian, and Pacific Islander inmates making up the rest.11Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables Black Americans make up roughly 13 percent of the U.S. population, so the 40 percent death row share represents a pronounced disparity that has persisted across the entire modern era of capital punishment.
Gender is far more lopsided. Men make up about 98 percent of all death row inmates, and fewer than 50 women hold a death sentence nationwide.13Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2019 – Statistical Tables That gap reflects which crimes most commonly draw capital prosecution: the overwhelming majority involve the murder of multiple victims or murders committed during other serious felonies.
How Executions Are Carried Out
Lethal injection dominates the modern era. Since 1976, it has been used in roughly 1,470 of the approximately 1,660 executions, about 89 percent of the total. Electrocution comes second at about 163 executions (roughly 10 percent), followed by lethal gas at 19, firing squad at 6, and hanging at 3.14Death Penalty Information Center. Methods of Execution
Lethal injection drug shortages have forced states to look elsewhere. Some have reauthorized older methods such as the electric chair or firing squad as backups when injection drugs are unavailable. The newest development is nitrogen hypoxia. In January 2024, Alabama carried out the first nitrogen gas execution, killing Kenneth Smith by depriving him of oxygen through a face mask. Witnesses reported Smith shook and writhed for several minutes before becoming still, and the process from gas flow to pronouncement of death took over 30 minutes. Five states now authorize nitrogen hypoxia: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma, though several authorize it only as a backup or when the inmate chooses it.
Who Cannot Be Executed
Three Supreme Court rulings place entire categories of defendants outside death-penalty eligibility regardless of state law. Roper v. Simmons (2005) bars executing anyone who committed their crime before turning 18.15Justia. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 Atkins v. Virginia (2002) bars executing individuals with intellectual disabilities, and later rulings clarified that states cannot rely on a rigid IQ cutoff.16Justia. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008) held the death penalty unconstitutional for any crime against an individual that does not result in or intend the victim’s death, effectively limiting capital punishment to murder and a narrow set of crimes against the state.17Justia. Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407
Exonerations From Death Row
Since 1973, at least 202 people sentenced to death have been fully exonerated of the charges that put them there.18Death Penalty Information Center. Innocence That works out to roughly one exoneration for every eight executions.
The wait is long and getting longer. Half of all death row exonerations have taken more than a decade, and more than half of exonerations since 2013 required 25 years or more.19Death Penalty Information Center. Time on Death Row The leading causes of wrongful capital convictions are official misconduct and perjury or false accusations. The appeals process focuses on legal errors rather than factual innocence, so the system is structurally slow at catching cases where the wrong person was convicted at trial.18Death Penalty Information Center. Innocence DNA testing has driven some of the most prominent exonerations, though access to post-conviction testing remains contested in several states.