As of 2025

• 23 states and Washington, D.C. have abolished the death penalty.

• 27 states, the federal government, and the U.S. military retain it.

• 3 states — California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania — maintain formal moratoriums.

On paper, the nation appears split. In practice, the death penalty is being driven by a shrinking number of states and a small but determined political bloc—bolstered, for the first time in decades, by a federal administration and Supreme Court openly hostile to reform.

Executions and Sentencing: A Shrinking Practice

• The U.S. hit a peak of 98 executions in 1999. In 2024, there were just 25.

• As of October 2025, that number is already at 35, with several more scheduled—almost entirely in the Deep South.

• New death sentences remain historically low. In Q1 2025 there were 10. (In the 1990s, annual totals regularly exceeded 300.)

Death Row Is Shrinking—For Now

• The national death row population is approximately 2,100 as of January 2025 (active death sentences) — with a broader count of ~2,213 when including those facing retrial or resentencing.

• In 2024 alone, many people were removed from death row via exoneration, commutation, or resentencing (exact aggregate varying by state).

• Missouri—once home to nearly 100 condemned inmates—now houses just 8.

But this trend, while encouraging, is increasingly under threat.

A Federal Reversal

In late 2024, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates. Federal executions were halted, and death row was reduced to just three individuals.

Then came 2025.

Within weeks of taking office, the current administration not only reversed the moratorium—it ordered the Department of Justice to expedite executions. Officials have floated proposals to broaden the range of federal capital offenses, and floated experimental execution protocols.

This is not simply policy whiplash. It is a deliberate reweaponizing of capital punishment—led by figures who have openly ridiculed due process, glorified state violence, and sought to dismantle judicial restraints.

Supreme Court: No Brake, All Gas

The current U.S. Supreme Court has removed what little friction once existed.

• In a series of 6–3 rulings, the Court has greenlit executions despite credible innocence claims, sharply limited appellate review, and allowed states to hide lethal injection protocols from public scrutiny.

• In April 2025, the Court declined to block enforcement of new laws in Florida and Idaho that allow executions for crimes such as child rape—directly challenging the Court’s own 2008 Kennedy v. Louisiana precedent.

• Legal observers note a pattern: hostility to Eighth Amendment protections, disregard for international law, and contempt for lower court findings of procedural or racial bias.

This Court does not merely tolerate capital punishment. It appears eager to entrench it as a tool of state power.

A System Riddled with Error

• Since 1973, at least 200 people have been exonerated from death row in the U.S.—about one for every 8.3 executions carried out.

• Over 50% of those exonerated are Black, despite Black Americans comprising less than 14% of the population.

• Courts continue to uncover suppressed evidence, junk forensics, prosecutorial misconduct, and coerced confessions—even in cases where execution dates had already been set.

Public Opinion: Cracks in the Foundation

• Gallup’s 2024 survey found just 53% of Americans support the death penalty—down from 80% in the mid-1990s.

• Over half of respondents now believe it is applied unfairly.

• A growing number of conservatives, libertarians, and religious leaders have joined the call for abolition, citing cost, error, and moral injury.

The Bigger Picture

The Path Forward

The abolition movement has achieved undeniable gains. Executions are rarer. Jurors are more reluctant. Governors and courts are stepping in.

But progress is no longer linear. We are now in a defensive posture, facing a federal government and judiciary that are not merely indifferent to human rights—they are antagonistic to them.

What lies ahead is not just a policy debate, but a moral reckoning. The death penalty, long discredited by facts, is now being propped up by force. It will take resolve—not just reform—to bring it down.