Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US prison) the condemned cells.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 59: Condemned row, almost always called death row except in official documents, is buried deep in the center of the north block.
1903		Logan Republican (UT) 17 Oct. 6/5: The convicts [were] started for the ‘death row’, where the men condemned to death are confined.
1912		Marion Dly Mirror (OH) 29 Jan. 1/1: ‘Goodbye boys,’ he shouted to the other eighteen condemned murderers in ‘death row’.
1921		Eve. Herald (Albuquerque, NM) 25 Dec. 5/1: Tghe youths had one cell in death row.
1933		C. Himes ‘His Last Day’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 292: He reviewed the chain of circumstances that led up to his present confinement in the death row.
1941		C. Himes ‘Face in the Moonlight’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 137: You think about the boys over in Death Row, too.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 138: There was an aura of fear and dread and horror around Death Row.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 383: ‘He’s gonna burn.’ ‘Christ a’mighty, how many they got on the row now?’.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 206: He knew what was coming, knew the reasons he had been summoned to this holding cell on death row.
1988		Ice-T ‘Drama’ 🎵 On death row they got their own hot seat.
1998		Mark Baker Bad Guys 23: He got found guilty at the trial, and he’s on Death Row right now.
2006		Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice 🌐 399 Offenders are Currently on Death Row.
2011		W. Henderson City of Nightmares Part Two 21: It was B-Block, the hole and Death Row.
2012		T. Piccirilli Last Kind Words 270: ‘[A] family of thieves. One’s on death row and due for the needle, and another just bought the farm’.

2. (N.Z. prison) a padded cell for suicidal prisoners.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 54/1: death row n. a padded cell for suicidal inmates.