Possibly in part due to expedited federal habeas corpus procedures embodied in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the pace of executions picked up, reaching a peak of 98 in 1999 and then they declined gradually to 28 in 2015. Since the death penalty was reauthorized in 1976, 1,411 people have been executed, almost exclusively by the states, with most occurring after 1990. Texas has accounted for over one-third of modern executions (although only two death sentences were imposed in Texas during 2015, with the courts preferring to issue sentences of life without parole instead) and over four times as many as Oklahoma, the state with the second-highest number. California has the greatest number of prisoners on death row, has issued the highest number of death sentences but has held relatively few executions.
How many people have been executed in the United States since 1976?
1,411