Since the United States reinstated capital punishment in 1976, 1,666 people have been executed across state and federal jurisdictions, a figure current through mid-2026. That total reflects a practice that climbed through the 1980s, peaked in the late 1990s, declined sharply for two decades, and then jumped again in 2025.1Death Penalty Information Center. Executions Overview
How the Yearly Count Has Changed
Executions restarted slowly after the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision in Gregg v. Georgia cleared the way for states to resume capital punishment. Gary Gilmore’s execution by firing squad in Utah on January 17, 1977, was the first under the reinstated system. Only a handful followed each year through the early 1980s.
The pace accelerated through the 1990s and hit its modern peak in 1999, when 98 people were executed in a single year.2Death Penalty Information Center. The Death Penalty in 1999 Year End Report About a third of those were in Texas alone.
From that peak, annual totals dropped steadily. By the mid-2010s, fewer than 30 people were being executed per year. In 2024, the count was 25. Then 2025 reversed the trend sharply: 47 executions, nearly double the prior year, with Florida alone accounting for 19 of them.3Death Penalty Information Center. The Death Penalty in 2025 A single governor or attorney general deciding to clear a backlog can reshape the national total in a given year.
Several forces drove the long decline. Legal challenges to lethal injection drugs made sentences harder to carry out. Juries became less willing to impose death. Public support for capital punishment fell from roughly 80 percent in the mid-1990s to around 55 percent in recent polling. Whether the 2025 uptick is a genuine reversal or a one-year anomaly will take a few more years to answer.
Which States Account for the Executions
The geographic distribution is extreme. A small group of states accounts for the overwhelming majority of the 1,666 total:1Death Penalty Information Center. Executions Overview
- Texas: 600 executions, more than the next four states combined
- Oklahoma: 131
- Florida: 131
- Virginia: 113, before it abolished the death penalty in 2021
- Missouri: 102
- Alabama: 83
- Georgia: 77
Texas alone is responsible for roughly 36 percent of all modern-era executions. The concentration reflects differences in prosecutorial culture, appellate timelines, and political attitudes as much as it reflects crime rates. Harris County, which includes Houston, has produced more death sentences than most entire states.
At the other end, 23 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty.4Death Penalty Information Center. State by State The most recent abolitions include Virginia in 2021 and Washington in 2023. Several additional states keep the death penalty on their books but have not carried out an execution in over a decade, functioning as de facto abolition states without changing their laws.
Federal Executions Within the Total
The federal government operates under a separate framework through the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC Chapter 228 – Death Sentence Despite broad federal authority, only 16 federal executions have occurred since 1976.
Thirteen of those 16 took place in a six-month span between July 2020 and January 2021, when the outgoing administration resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus. That burst exceeded what the federal government had carried out in the preceding six decades combined. No federal executions have occurred since, and the federal death row at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, still holds dozens of people whose sentences remain in legal limbo.
Who the 1,666 Were
The racial breakdown roughly tracks the broader prison population, with disparities that have drawn sustained legal scrutiny. Approximately 56 percent of those executed since 1976 were white, 34 percent were Black, 8 percent were Hispanic, and the remaining 2 percent were Native American, Asian, or another race.6Death Penalty Information Center. Executions by Race and Race of Victim
Those defendant-race figures do not capture the role of the victim’s race. A study by Professor David Baldus of Georgia homicide cases found that murders with white victims were roughly 11 times more likely to result in a death sentence than murders with Black victims. Even after controlling for more than 230 non-racial variables, the sentencing rate remained 6 percent higher in white-victim cases. The victim’s race was as strong a predictor of a death sentence as the aggravating factors spelled out in the sentencing statute.
Gender is even more lopsided. Only 18 of the 1,666 people executed since 1976 have been women, barely over 1 percent.7Death Penalty Information Center. Executions of Women The gap reflects lower rates of capital-eligible violent crime among women, combined with research suggesting juries are less likely to impose death on female defendants.
How Those Executions Were Carried Out
Lethal injection dominates the modern era, accounting for roughly 85 percent of all executions since 1976. Every state with an active death penalty and the federal government use it as the primary method.8Death Penalty Information Center. Lethal Injection The traditional protocol uses three drugs: a sedative to render the person unconscious, a paralytic, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. Some states have shifted to a single-drug protocol using a high dose of a sedative.
Electrocution is the next most common method, used 163 times. A handful of states still offer it as an alternative. The gas chamber has been used 12 times, hanging 3 times, and the firing squad 3 times.
The newest method is nitrogen hypoxia, which replaces breathable air with pure nitrogen to cause death by oxygen deprivation. Alabama carried out the first such execution in January 2024 and has used the method eight times through late 2025. Louisiana also adopted nitrogen gas for executions in 2025.3Death Penalty Information Center. The Death Penalty in 2025 The method remains contested. Some executions have been prolonged, and medical groups have raised concerns about the lack of research into its effects on humans. South Carolina also carried out the country’s first firing squad execution in 15 years in 2025.
A Note on the Total
The 1,666 figure counts executions, not confirmed guilt. Since 1973, at least 202 people sentenced to death have been fully exonerated of all charges related to their conviction.9Death Penalty Information Center. Innocence For every roughly eight people executed in the modern era, one person on death row has been found innocent and released. More than half of those exonerations took longer than a decade, and among exonerations since 2013, more than half involved people who had spent 25 years or more on death row before their convictions were overturned.10Death Penalty Information Center. Time on Death Row The leading causes of wrongful capital convictions are perjury and official misconduct.