On death row?

Pennsylvania's death penalty remains on the books although just three men have been executed since capital punishment was reenacted 38 years ago, the last in 1999.

Nor do juries in Pennsylvania's 67 counties seem especially eager to condemn fellow citizens to death. In 2015, for example, juries in just three counties – Bucks, Monroe and Washington – imposed death sentences, the same number as in 2014. Over the last decade, the number of death sentences by Pennsylvania juries has been in a general decline from a high of nine in 2005.

The downward trend in Pennsylvania mirrors what is happening nationwide, where death sentences have declined from 140 in 2005 to 73 in 2014, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center.

During that same time period, actual executions have also declined from 60 to 28 last year. Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court laid the foundation for the modern use of capital punishment, Texas had led the nation in the number of people put to death: 531, including 13 last year.

Still, the legacy of capital punishment is Pennsylvania remains: the fifth largest death row among the 31 states still allowing execution. According to the state Department of Corrections, 181 people – including two women – are awaiting execution in death rows in five state prisons where they are confined to cells 23 hours of every day.

The current record-holder for longest death row resident is Henry Fahy, 58, the Kensington junk man convicted in the 1981 rape and murder of his 12-year-old neighbor, Nicolette "Nicky" Caserta. Fahy, however, is not the oldest condemned inmate; that distinction goes to Roland Steele, 69, the Washington County man sentenced to three death sentences in 1986 for the karate-punch slayings of three elderly widows.

It's likely to be years more before any of them gets near the state's death chamber at the Rockview state prison near State College. Last month, the state Supreme Court affirmed Gov. Wolf's 11-month-old policy of granting reprieves to all inmates facing imminent execution pending the report of a legislative task force studying the fairness and effectiveness of the use of capital punishment in Pennsylvania.

The state Senate authorized the task force in 2011. The task force was to have issued its report in December 2013, but the deadline has been extended.