Orange County court cases have resulted in nine death sentences since 2010. The 10th might come in the capital trial of Scott Dekraai. Dekraai killed eight people in Seal Beach in 2011, but because of prosecutors’ and deputies’ misuse of jailhouse informants in this and other cases, execution might be removed as a possible penalty.
California’s death row inmates
California has 748 people on death row, 300 more than the next highest state.
California has put 513 people to death since 1893, with the vast majority of executions from 1920 to 1940. In 1972 the California Supreme Court decided the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment. It was reinstated in 1978 but executions did not resume until 1992.The last execution was in 2006.
States with death row inmates
California has more people on death row than Florida and Texas combined.
*California total as of Aug. 11, the rest of the states are as of Oct. 1, 2016
Alaska and Hawaii have no death penalty. Note: New Mexico, Connecticut and Maryland abolished the death penalty but the law was not made retroactive so each state has several inmates on death row.
California’s death sentences, 1978-2015
Sources: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; State of California; Death Row Population Figures, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.