10 States With the Most People on Death Row

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 4:32AM EST · Published Aug 17, 10:15AM EDT

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10 States With the Most People on Death Row — © Thinkstock

As Lonnie Franklin Jr., also known as the Grim Sleeper, heads to death row, it is worth a look at how many people await execution in the 10 states with the largest populations of people sentenced to death. California leads the list, followed by Florida and Texas.

According to the Denver Post:

Detective Daryn Dupree said Franklin is one of the most prolific killers and could have killed as many as 25 women from the late 1970s until his arrest in 2010. That includes the period of 1988 to 2002 when police originally thought the killer took a break — an apparent hiatus that helped coin his nickname.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Franklin may wait a very long time before his execution. The average number of months between sentencing and execution was 190 in 2012. Only one year, 2011, had a longer wait period, based on numbers that date back to 1984.

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The organization points out that this long period serves a purpose:

The years it takes to carry out a death sentence exact a huge toll – on taxpayers, victims’ families and inmates themselves. Yet without thorough appeals, mistakes in death penalty cases would be missed.

As an example, according to the New York Post, in 2014:

A Brooklyn man locked away for 28 years on a flimsy murder rap walked free today after a judge vacated his wrongful conviction.

Ronald Reagan was still president and a gallon of gas was 89 cents when 16-year-old David McCallum went to jail for a kidnapping and murder he did not commit.

After years of fighting for his freedom — a cause championed by the wrongfully convicted boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter — McCallum was finally given a second lease on life.

When Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Matthew D’Emic said “I will dismiss the indictments” McCallum dropped his head to the table in front of him, remaining motionless as his lawyer Oscar Michelen rubbed his back.

The Death Penalty Information Center keeps a list of people on death row. As of January 1, 2016, the total was 2,943. Here is the list of the top 10 as of that time:

California, 743
Florida, 396
Texas, 263
Alabama, 196
Pennsylvania, 180
North Carolina, 155
Ohio, 143
Arizona, 125
Louisiana, 81
Nevada, 79

Source: Death row population figures come from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.