The Gallup Poll has released results on its survey of American attitudes on the death penalty. They are largely stable since 2011. The better worded of the two questions is this:
In your opinion, is the death penalty imposed -- [ROTATED: too often, about the right amount, or not often enough]?About 2/3 of respondents say about right or not enough, indicating support for capital punishment in its present use or greater. This is a few percent lower than the 72% in 2001 when Gallup first asked the question, but still a very strong majority.
The traditional question that Gallup has been asking since 1934 is:
Compare "no" on the "yes/no" question with "too often" on the "how often" question. If "no" means opposition to the death penalty for murder in all circumstances, everyone who answers "no" would logically have to answer "too often," since even once is too often for someone who believes in complete abolition. Yet we see that a third of the people answering "no," 11% of the total sample, did not say the death penalty is imposed too often.
I believe that many of the respondents are interpreting the traditional yes/no question to ask whether they favor the death penalty as the single punishment for all murders. Understood that way, I would answer "no" myself. The death penalty is for the worst murders, a few percent of the total. As strong an advocate of capital punishment as I am, if I had to choose between executing all or none, I would choose none.
The fact that support for the death penalty is down from its highs during the massive crime years is not surprising, although the other side tries to make a big deal of it. Slow softening of support is a concern, though, and it is important that people understand just what truly horrible crimes the murderers on death row committed. It is important that we get that word out.
Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?On this question, 60% said yes and 37% said no. This question is typically interpreted as meaning that people who answer "no" support complete abolition of the death penalty, but comparison with the other question shows that not all respondents understand it that way.
Compare "no" on the "yes/no" question with "too often" on the "how often" question. If "no" means opposition to the death penalty for murder in all circumstances, everyone who answers "no" would logically have to answer "too often," since even once is too often for someone who believes in complete abolition. Yet we see that a third of the people answering "no," 11% of the total sample, did not say the death penalty is imposed too often.
I believe that many of the respondents are interpreting the traditional yes/no question to ask whether they favor the death penalty as the single punishment for all murders. Understood that way, I would answer "no" myself. The death penalty is for the worst murders, a few percent of the total. As strong an advocate of capital punishment as I am, if I had to choose between executing all or none, I would choose none.
The fact that support for the death penalty is down from its highs during the massive crime years is not surprising, although the other side tries to make a big deal of it. Slow softening of support is a concern, though, and it is important that people understand just what truly horrible crimes the murderers on death row committed. It is important that we get that word out.
"The death penalty is for the worst murders, a few percent of the total. As strong an advocate of capital punishment as I am, if I had to choose between executing all or none, I would choose none."
If only more people on opposite sides of the many issues dividing this country were as reasonable as you, maybe we could solve some of the major problems facing the nation.
So this makes DP support under the relatively inaptly worded question 60 percent or more for the last 42 consecutive years.
I don't know of any issue in pubic debate that has had a majority that big for that long. And this is in the face of massively financed and deceitful campaigns about excessive costs (that abolitionists create) and supposedly innocent people executed (that abolitionists also fabricate).
I can't wait to see their spin on this poll. What are they going to say about the fact that, for all their efforts, that can't really budge the needle?
The spin is that America is full of racist barbarians who are unenlightened compared to their European counterparts in the "civilized" world.
"As strong an advocate of capital punishment as I am,
if I had to choose between executing all or none, I would choose none."
So magnanimous!
You widely have your latter choice, thanks to democrat & liberal Republican
un-American abusers of political power -- and a few pardon devotees such
as Ohio Gov. Kasich.
Examples include Brown, Chaffee, Inslee, Kitzhaber, O'Malley, Ryan and Wolf.
The families groan, democracy weeps.
[Would they not choose all?]
~ phillymag.com/news/2015/02/13/pennsylvania-
death-penalty-moratorium-tom-wolf/
paul --
One thing for which we might join together in seeking is for DP opponents to show some of Kent's reasonableness by admitting that, even with severe doubts about capital punishment, there are some murders so grotesque, and so outside the boundaries of civilized life, that the death penalty should be preserved in such cases.
The idea that it should NEVER be imposed, not for anything, ever, facts be damned, strikes me as exactly the sort of unthinking, unreasonable, extremist stance you correctly deplore.