At the end of 2023, 2,192 people were held on death row across 26 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons, a figure that has fallen more than 40% from the all-time high of 3,601 in 2000.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables Death row statistics have moved in one direction for two decades: fewer new sentences, a shrinking population, and a system where most people leave death row through resentencings, commutations, exonerations, or natural death rather than execution. Twenty-three states have abolished capital punishment entirely, and several that still authorize it have not carried out an execution in years.2Death Penalty Information Center. State by State
How Many People Are on Death Row Now
The 2,192 figure for yearend 2023 was a 3% drop from the 2,270 counted a year earlier.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables Annual declines have been running in the 3% to 4% range for several years running.
That pace jumped in December 2024, when President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people then on federal death row to life without parole. The federal death row fell from 41 at yearend 2023 to just three people.3Death Penalty Information Center. List of Federal Death Row Prisoners One action removed roughly 2% of the entire national death row. Combined with state-level resentencings, the total population likely fell below 2,100 by early 2025.
Race, Gender, and Veteran Status
White and Black inmates make up nearly equal shares of the death row population. As of 2024, 846 people on death row were white (about 42%) and 823 were Black (about 41%). Black Americans represent about 13% of the U.S. population overall. Latino inmates account for about 15% of death row (298 people), and Native American and Asian individuals together make up the remaining 3%.4Death Penalty Information Center. Racial Demographics
The gender split is extreme. As of October 2025, 47 women were on death row across the country, about 2% of the total.5Death Penalty Information Center. Women
Military veterans are overrepresented. About 200 veterans sit on death row, roughly 10% of the total, while veterans make up about 6% of the general population. Since 1972, at least 226 veterans have been executed, about 14% of all executions in the modern era.6Death Penalty Information Center. Forgotten Service, Lasting Wounds: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty
Where Death Row Populations Are Concentrated
Three states hold roughly half of everyone on death row in the country. California has by far the largest, though it is shrinking fast. In early 2025, different tracking agencies placed California’s count between 574 and 598, down from over 640 a year earlier, driven by a wave of resentencing proceedings.7Death Penalty Information Center. State Spotlight: California Death Row Shrinks Sharply in 2024 California has not executed anyone since 2006 and operates under a governor-imposed moratorium. Florida held 288 people and Texas held 180 as of mid-2024.8Death Penalty Information Center. Death Row USA
Authorizing capital punishment and using it are two different things. Some states have death penalty statutes but zero inmates under a death sentence. Others maintain sizable death rows while official moratoria block any executions. California, Oregon, and several others fall into the second category, meaning more than a third of everyone on death row nationally is in a state where executions are currently suspended.8Death Penalty Information Center. Death Row USA
New Death Sentences Each Year
The number of new death sentences has collapsed. Courts handed down more than 300 per year at the peak in the mid-1990s.9Death Penalty Information Center. Sentencing Data By 2023, that number had fallen to 15, the fewest since 1973.10Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables The figure ticked up to 23 new sentences in 2025, but remains dramatically lower than anything in previous decades.11Death Penalty Information Center. The Death Penalty in 2025
Several forces explain the decline. Prosecutors in many jurisdictions have grown less willing to seek death, sometimes citing cost, sometimes finding juries harder to convince. The availability of life without parole gives jurors a severe option that doesn’t require a death verdict. Legal challenges to lethal injection protocols have stalled the pipeline in several states, making capital prosecution less attractive when the practical likelihood of execution is remote.
Executions Per Year
Executions peaked at 98 in 1999, when 20 states put prisoners to death in a single year.12Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 1999 The count fell steadily after that. Five states executed a total of 24 prisoners in 2023, and 25 executions took place in 2024.10Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables
The year 2025 broke that trend. Through mid-November 2025, 41 executions had been carried out, the highest annual total in more than a decade. Much of the increase came from a small number of states, particularly Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, pressing forward with scheduled executions at an accelerated pace. Whether the jump reflects a sustained reversal or a temporary spike is an open question.
Even with the 2025 increase, actual execution accounts for a minority of how people leave death row. Resentencings, commutations, exonerations, and natural deaths together remove far more people than execution does.
Average Time Between Sentence and Execution
People eventually executed now wait a long time. For the 22 prisoners put to death in 2019, the average gap between sentencing and execution was 264 months, or 22 years.13Death Penalty Information Center. Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports Number on Death Row Down, Average Time on Death Row Approaches 19 Years For those executed in 2020, the average was 18.9 years.14Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2020 – Statistical Tables Those durations are roughly triple what they were in the 1980s, when stays were measured in single-digit years.
The reason is procedural. Every death sentence triggers a mandatory direct appeal to the state’s highest court, followed by state post-conviction review and federal habeas corpus proceedings.15Capital Punishment in Context. Death Penalty Appeals Process Each stage involves briefing, hearings, and often remands. The practical effect is that many inmates die of old age or illness before the process ends.
Exonerations From Death Row
Since 1973, at least 202 people sentenced to death have been exonerated of all charges related to their capital convictions. That works out to roughly one exoneration for every eight executions.16Death Penalty Information Center. Innocence
Clearing a wrongful conviction is slow. Half of all death row exonerations have taken more than a decade, and more than half of those since 2013 required 25 years or longer. Twelve people exonerated between 2010 and 2021 had spent 30 or more years on death row before being cleared.17Death Penalty Information Center. Time on Death Row
Execution Methods in Use
Lethal injection remains the primary authorized method in every state that carries out executions. Most states use either a single-drug protocol built around pentobarbital or a three-drug sequence combining a sedative, a paralytic, and a heart-stopping chemical.18Death Penalty Information Center. State-by-State Execution Protocols
A growing number of states have authorized backup methods for cases where lethal injection drugs are unavailable or the method is found unconstitutional. Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution using nitrogen hypoxia, and Louisiana and Mississippi have also authorized it. Several states permit electrocution, firing squad, or lethal gas as alternatives. South Carolina allows condemned prisoners to choose among lethal injection, electrocution, and firing squad. Idaho and Mississippi authorize the firing squad as a fallback.18Death Penalty Information Center. State-by-State Execution Protocols
What the Death Penalty Costs
Capital punishment is more expensive than life without parole at every stage. Housing a death row inmate typically costs roughly twice as much per year as housing someone in the general prison population, reflecting heightened security and single-cell requirements.19West Virginia Legislature. Fiscal Note With the average stay stretching past two decades, those added costs compound over a long span.
Housing is only part of it. Capital trials require a separate penalty phase, often double the jury selection time, more extensive investigation by both sides, and years of additional appellate litigation. Studies across multiple states consistently find that the death penalty imposes a net cost to taxpayers compared with sentencing someone to life without parole.20Death Penalty Information Center. Costs That cost gap has become a growing factor in legislative debates over whether to keep capital punishment on the books.