About 2,100 people are on death row in the US as of early 2025, down from a peak of 3,593 in 2000. The count dropped by roughly 149 in 2024 alone, the largest single-year decline in two decades. Almost everyone under a death sentence is held by a state; only a handful are in federal or military custody.
The Count by Jurisdiction
Condemned prisoners fall into three separate systems, and the sizes are wildly uneven.
State Death Rows
States hold the overwhelming majority. At the end of 2023, 26 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons together held 2,192 prisoners under sentence of death, a 3 percent drop from the year before.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables The decline has continued since. Twenty-three states have abolished capital punishment entirely, with Washington the most recent in 2023.2Death Penalty Information Center. State by State Among states that keep it, many have not executed anyone in decades, so inmates sit under sentence with no execution date set.
Federal Death Row
Federal death row is now very small. It held about 40 people before December 2024. On December 23, 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of those 40 prisoners to life without parole, leaving three people on federal death row. In April 2026, the Department of Justice rescinded the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and directed the Bureau of Prisons to reinstate the execution protocol.3United States Department of Justice. The Justice Department Takes Actions to Strengthen the Federal Death Penalty
Military Death Row
Seven people are held on military death row as of March 2025.4Death Penalty Information Center. US Military Death Penalty Facts and Figures Any military death sentence has to be approved by the President before it can be carried out.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 US Code 894 – Art. 94 Mutiny or Sedition No military execution has taken place since 1961.
Which States Hold the Most
Three states account for well over half of the country’s condemned population.
- California holds about 580 inmates as of early 2025, the largest death row in the country. Executions have been under a moratorium since 2006. The state’s death row shrank by roughly 10 percent in 2024 alone, largely through court-ordered resentencings.6Death Penalty Information Center. State Spotlight – California Death Row Shrinks Sharply in 2024
- Florida holds about 247 inmates and actively carries out executions, leading the nation in execution counts in recent years.
- Texas holds about 167 inmates and has historically executed more people than any other state, which partly explains why its death row is smaller relative to its sentencing history.
States that actively execute tend to have smaller death rows. States under moratoriums accumulate large condemned populations that grow older without resolution. Even in active states, executions run far behind sentencing: 25 executions were carried out nationwide in all of 2024.
Who Is on Death Row
As of April 2025, the racial breakdown of the roughly 2,024 people tracked on state and federal death rows was:7Death Penalty Information Center. Racial Demographics
- White: 846 inmates, about 42 percent
- Black: 823 inmates, about 41 percent
- Latino: 298 inmates, about 15 percent
- Asian and Native American: 57 inmates combined, about 3 percent
Black inmates make up 41 percent of death row while representing roughly 13 percent of the US population. The gap has persisted for decades across different states and regions.
Gender skews sharply male. Women make up fewer than 2 percent of the condemned population, with roughly 50 women under death sentences nationwide. Most states that retain capital punishment currently hold no women on death row.
About 300 death row inmates are military veterans, according to a Death Penalty Information Center report.
Why the Number Keeps Falling
The national death row population has dropped by more than 40 percent since its peak of 3,593 in 2000, and the pace has picked up.8Death Penalty Information Center. Size of Death Row by Year Several forces are pushing the count down:
- Fewer new death sentences. Courts imposed just 26 new death sentences in 2024, a fraction of the 300-plus annual sentences common in the 1990s.
- Commutations. Governors and presidents commuted 52 death sentences in 2024, including President Biden’s 37 federal commutations and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s 15 state commutations.
- Exonerations. At least 202 people sentenced to death since 1973 have been fully exonerated.9Death Penalty Information Center. Innocence
- Supreme Court rulings that removed whole categories of inmates from eligibility, including Atkins v. Virginia (2002), which barred execution of people with intellectual disabilities.10Justia. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 US 304 (2002)
- State abolitions. Twenty-three states have eliminated the death penalty entirely, several within the past decade.2Death Penalty Information Center. State by State
The result is a death row that is both shrinking and aging. More than half of all condemned prisoners have been on death row for over 18 years, and some for more than four decades.11Death Penalty Information Center. Time on Death Row For many, the wait becomes a life sentence in practice regardless of how the case ends.