How long death row

More than half of U. Opinions about the death penalty vary by party, education and race and ethnicity. Views of the death penalty differ by religious affiliation. Around two-thirds of Protestants in the U. Opposition to the death penalty also varies among the religiously unaffiliated. Support for the death penalty is consistently higher in online polls than in phone polls.

Survey respondents sometimes give different answers depending on how a poll is conducted. In a series of contemporaneous Pew Research Center surveys fielded online and on the phone between September and August , Americans consistently expressed more support for the death penalty in a self-administered online format than in a survey administered on the phone by a live interviewer.

This pattern was more pronounced among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents than among Republicans and GOP leaners, according to an analysis of the survey results. Phone polls have shown a long-term decline in public support for the death penalty.

In phone surveys conducted by Pew Research Center between and , the share of U. Phone surveys conducted by Gallup found a similar decrease in support for capital punishment during this time span. A majority of states have the death penalty, but far fewer use it regularly. As of July , the death penalty is authorized by 27 states and the federal government — including the U. Department of Justice and the U. But even in many of the jurisdictions that authorize the death penalty, executions are rare: 13 of these states, along with the U.

That includes three states — California , Oregon and Pennsylvania — where governors have imposed formal moratoriums on executions. A growing number of states have done away with the death penalty in recent years, either through legislation or a court ruling. Virginia, which has carried out more executions than any state except Texas since , abolished capital punishment in Death sentences have steadily decreased in recent decades. There were 2, people on death row in the U.

New death sentences have also declined sharply: 31 people were sentenced to death in , far below the more than who received death sentences each year between and In recent years, prosecutors in some U. He spent just eight months on death row before being executed by a lethal injection on September 18, Raymond Riles spent more than 45 years on death row after fatally shooting John Thomas Henry in at a Houston car lot.

But the year-old was resentenced to life in prison in June after prosecutors in Texas concluded he is ineligible for execution and incompetent for retrial due to his long history of mental illness. He was resentenced after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his "death sentence can no longer stand" because jurors didn't fully consider his history of mental illness.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, he is the country's longest serving death row prisoner. In , the average time spent on death row between sentencing and execution was months - 22 years. Prisoners often have to wait many years before being executed due to complex and time-consuming appeal procedures mandated in the jurisdiction. Register for free Already a member?

More information. Other statistics on the topic. Profit from additional features with an Employee Account. Please create an employee account to be able to mark statistics as favorites. Then you can access your favorite statistics via the star in the header. Profit from additional features by authenticating your Admin account.

Then you will be able to mark statistics as favourites and use personal statistics alerts. Please log in to access our additional functions. Yes, let me download! Exclusive Corporate feature. Corporate Account. Statista Accounts: Access All Statistics. Basic Account. You only have access to basic statistics. Single Account.