0 20 40 60 80 100 Electrocution Injection Firing squad Gas chamber Hanging 3 11 3 1,207 158 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s+ 60 198 457 547 123 South Midwest North West 4 Federal 3 84 167 1,127 Men Women 14 1,371 1980 1990 2000 2010 60 20 40 60 80 100 1980 1990 2000 2010 1980 1990 2000 2010 1980 1990 2000 2010 BLACK WHITE HISPANIC OTHER* The executed BY METHOD BY AGE The victims Thirty-four percent (477) of those executed were black, while blacks make up 13 percent of the U.S. population. Fifty-six percent (774) were white, compared with 63 percent of the population. Eight percent (110) were Hispanic, compared with 17 percent of the population. And 2 percent (24) were Asian, Native American or another race. Three-quarters of the victims were white. Most common has been the lethal injection of one, two or three drugs, some of which are in short supply after European drugmakers stopped exports. Many appeals and stays have hinged on whether alternatives are reliable and humane. Age at the time of execution has ranged from 22 to 77. Twenty-two people were executed for crimes commited before they were 18. In 2005, the Supreme Court banned executions for crimes committed by juveniles. BY REGION Texas (515), Oklahoma (111) and Virginia (110) have accounted for more than half of all U.S. executions. Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico and Wyoming have executed one person each. The federal government has executed three. This chart depicts the 2,085 murders for which people have been executed since 1976, but the actual number of victims killed is much higher. That’s because a person sentenced to death in multiple cases is officially executed in only one. Also, prosecutors often decline to try additional cases after a death sentence is handed down. For example, D.C. area sniper John Allen Muhammad was officially executed in 2009 for the murder of Dean H. Meyers of Gaithersburg, although he and teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo killed nine other people in the area in 2002 and were linked to more murders around the country. Serial killer Ted Bundy was officially executed for killing 12-year-old Kimberly Leach of Florida, but he was convicted of three murders and is widely assumed to have committed many more. 1999: A record 98 people were executed this year in 20 states as a backlog of cases was cleared by expedited federal and state appeals processes. 1977: The first person put to death after the reinstatement of capital punishment was Gary Gilmore, by firing squad in Utah. Gilmore was convicted of killing a gas station attendant and a motel clerk during robberies a day apart in 1976 and was executed for the second murder. He refused all efforts to mitigate his sentence, and his last words were,“Let’s do it.” 2001: This total includes the 168 people, 19 of them children, killed by Timothy McVeigh when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. 1994: John Wayne Gacy was executed for 12 of the 33 boys and young men he molested and murdered in suburban Chicago in the 1970s. BY GENDER Three women were executed in 2001, the most since the death penalty was reinstated. All were in Oklahoma: Wanda Jean Allen killed her girlfriend, Marilyn Plantz hired men to kill her husband, Lois Smith killed her son’s ex-girlfriend. *Other includes Asian, Native American and other By year of murderer’s execution,not year when they were killed 1 2 1 2 5 21 18 18 25 11 16 23 14 31 38 31 56 45 74 68 98 85 66 71 65 59 60 53 42 37 52 46 43 43 39 1 2 4 2 6 25 30 18 19 16 40 40 54 45 71 71 97 94 129 115 250 107 74 93 78 65 52 75 59 62 67 54 1977 1979 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 2012 93 25 17 South: Ala., Ark., Del., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Md., Miss., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Texas, Va.Midwest: Ill., Ind., Mo., Neb., Ohio, S.D.West: Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., N.M., Nev., Ore., Utah, Wash., Wyo. Breaking down U.S. executions 26 35 2014

SOURCE: Death Penalty Information Center; Washington Post archives and other published reports; “Death Row USA,” by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; U.S. Census Bureau.