We the people still support the death penalty.

[yallerdawg]

But we're getting better!

From Pew Research Center:

A majority of Americans favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder, but support for the death penalty is as low as it has been in the past 40 years. A new Pew Research Center survey finds 56% favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 38% are opposed.

The share supporting the death penalty has declined six percentage points, from 62%, since 2011. Throughout much of the 1980s and 90s, support for the death penalty often surpassed 70%. In a 1996 survey, 78% favored the death penalty, while just 18% were opposed.

Democrats are less supportive. Yaaayyyy, Democrats!!!

Much of the decline in support over the past two decades has come among Democrats. Currently, just 40% of Democrats favor the death penalty, while 56% are opposed. In 1996, Democrats favored capital punishment by a wide margin (71% to 25%).

There has been much less change in opinions among Republicans: 77% favor the death penalty, down from 87% in 1996. The share of independents who favor the death penalty has fallen 22 points over this period, from 79% to 57%.

Liberal Democrats are way less supportive. Yaaayyy, liberals!

Democrats continue to be ideologically divided over the death penalty. Nearly half of conservative and moderate Democrats (48%) favor it, compared with 29% of liberals. Among Republicans, conservative Republicans are as likely as moderate and liberal Republicans to favor the death penalty (77% each).

Innocent people get put to death? Probably...

Death penalty supporters overwhelmingly view it as morally justified: 90% say that when someone commits a crime like murder, the death penalty is morally justified. Just 26% of death penalty opponents view it as morally justified.

Yet the differences between death penalty supporters and opponents are not as stark when it comes to other opinions about capital punishment. A large majority (84%) of those who oppose the death penalty say there is a risk that an innocent person will be put to death; so too do 63% of death penalty supporters.

Lots more statistics at http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/16/less-support-for-death-penalty-especially-among-democrats/

[sheshe2]

1. In a way, I am torn here.

No, I don't support it. A situation here in Boston with the Marathon bombing. He is guilty. They are now making the decision on the death penalty. Honestly I do not want it. Yet dear god, in the lunchroom today there was a copy of Boston Magazine. A book that will be coming out, the first cop on scene became the lead. In the first paragraph he described entering the scene, he saw a severed leg on fire in the street. He saw multiple casualties, and called for every ambulance in the city.

That was the beginning.

[beam me up scottie]

2. I think that's the difference between liberals and conservatives.

We feel the same emotions but we try to rise above. We don't want to be like them.

Sorry for what you're going through.

[sheshe2]

3. I had to stop reading.

It made me cry all over again. The Richards family don't want it either. They wrote a letter saying no to the death penalty. They lost their son that day, their daughter lost her leg. The mom, I can't remember, it was something about her eye.

Hey, half of Mass had a friend there that day. My sister store was a few doors down from one of the blasts. They saw more than anyone should see in a lifetime.

[beam me up scottie]

5. And still MA doesn't want the death penalty.

You're lucky to live in such a great city and state.

I'm originally from Vermont and I miss New England.

[sheshe2]

6. The vote is not in yet.

We will see. I believe it will be no. I could be wrong.

Monday, second anniversary for the marathon bombing. We run~

[aikoaiko]

4. I still support it, but I'll be a bit relieved if it's banned.

[Logical]

21. Wow, really? What 2 countries do you admire that uses it? Just curious? nt

[aikoaiko]

24. The U.S. And Texas.

Lol.

What do other countries have to do with my support for the DP?

Is that how you make your political decisions?

[Logical]

28. You obviously looked at the list and realize no countries we consider progressive use it. Hmmmm.....

Wonder why?? Here you go. If confused get back to me.

And since you consider Texas a state says a lot about you.

[aikoaiko]

29. Lol. You're so funny. I love your schtick.

[Logical]

31. LOL, you exposed yourself! Classic. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. I was a child when California reintroduced the death penalty

I remember my mother explaining to me what that meant and even then I was overcome with a sense of disgust and that was when I thought they were going to shoot people. That was when I learned that California had the gas chamber, I'm jewish, even as a child I knew what that was. This came up in the context of Proposition 7 in 1978.

I was completely overcome, people in my community didn't just want to kill people, they intended to do it the same way the nazis had.

From that moment, and even after a family member was murdered, I never wavered in my visceral opposition to the death penalty.

[951-Riverside]

8. We need to end this barbaric practice of locking people in cages for the rest of their lives

27 countries including our neighbors in Mexico have abolished life imprisonment and I think Norway's policy of 21 years max is sufficient enough.

Depriving a human being of their freedom for the rest of their lives is just as bad as the death penalty and serves no purpose but to punish not reform and rehabilitate.

[PinkPotus]

18. Agreed. Jail / prison is cruel and unusual.

[tritsofme]

38. Prison is punishment.

I don't particularly care if a person convicted of first degree murder is reformed or rehabilitated.

The purpose of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole to punish and take from that person the freedom they permanently stole from another.

[FLPanhandle]

40. and people like you are why I support the Death Penalty

Because, there are some heinous criminals that should never be allowed to prey on people again (e.g. child rapists/murderers). If we could guarantee that they could be locked up, never to see the light of day again, then I could accept the end of the death penalty.

Yet, that isn't guaranteed because, after ending the death penalty, people like you will insist on ending life in prison.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. It's only recently that polling in the UK found support for capital punishment under 50%

and it's been banned here for 50 years.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Why did support for the death penalty grow from 42% in the late 60s to 78% in 1996?

Last edited Sun Apr 19, 2015, 10:02 AM - Edit history (1)

That's bizarre.

(Just realised, looking again at the graph, the low figure for support in the 1960s was 42%, not 47% (which was the figure for opposition then)).

[MillennialDem]

13. Just speculating but maybe DNA and video evidence?

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. I don't see how that's relevant

DNA evidence didn't come in until right at the end of that 30 year period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_profiling#Cases

I'm not sure what you mean by 'video evidence'. Evidence given over a video link? Close-circuit TV recordings? I don't see how either would have an effect on support or opposition to the death penalty.

[MillennialDem]

16. I think both of those give more "certainty of guilt" than evidence that was used in the 1960s. And

video evidence, yes people with video cameras when a crime occurs or cctv.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. But DNA evidence didn't appear until the late 80s

by which time the death penalty had already become very popular:



I suppose video from CCTV would have been appearing in court cases a bit before that (hardly ever from people with video cameras - people didn't carry them around as a regular thing), but it seems relevant only to each individual case, not to whether the penalty should in principle exist.

[MillennialDem]

19. Ok good to know. It was just speculation on my (uninformed) part, I wasn't claiming I knew.

[PinkPotus]

20. Looks like support for DP sorta mirrors the horrific crime rates of those times

Do you remember how bloody and violent the late 80s were? As the crime rate rose, as the murders increased in quantity and heinousness, so rose support for the death penalty. Then the crime rate began to fall and with it support for capital punishment.

[cali]

11. I oppose the dp because I have had, as long as I can remember, a horror

of state sponsored killing.

[ladjf]

12. Capital punishment is a barbaric, cruel practice and

is a horrible disgrace to the United States. nt

[MillennialDem]

14. The only time I'd even consider supporting it is if the person admits it publicly. DNA evidence

can be tampered with and video evidence may not show the whole picture/story. Signed confessions can be faked or coerced.

Even then I'm on the fence.

The fact that we could put someone to death when they might be innocent is the most wrong thing as possible.

[Logical]

22. You know 25% of the people let of death row confessed to the crime? nt

[MillennialDem]

41. Well in that case we're still giving them what they want :p again I'm talking about

public admissions too, not because some jailhouse "snitch" or some officer overheard it or even a signed confession.

I'm talking about someone going in front of reporters on live tv and say "f yeah I killed that ____" - how many times has THAT happened?

[MineralMan]

23. I have been categorically oppose to capital punishment

my entire adult life. That opposition will continue for the rest of it.

[JonLP24]

25. Really, there aren't any good reasons to support it

because for whatever logically sound reasons for supporting it what ends up happening is you have politically motivated prosecutors & politicians all seeking the DP in whatever high profile case there may be or stack up executions to help them for whatever reason. Looking back at those old Bush-Gore debates he really came across as blood thirsty taking about the state of Texas & executions.

Shaken baby syndrome was based on a flawed science as a result of this can only be possible if someone does this when in reality many possible causes can lead "shaken baby syndrome" so anyway, corrupt Andrew Thomas called for the DP in a trial of someone who appeared based on the facts to have been caught up in a horrifying ideal but not just that -- you have the state spending hundreds of thousands trying to kill Jodi Arias twice. 1 jury was hung with the judge trying to urge them to come with an agreement in a hurry.

The problem with the State of Arizona and the DP is if I understanding correctly, the jury that sat through the entire trial sets the DP trial but if it hangs & they do it again they get a new jury who watches or is recapped an abbrieviated version of the actual trial which bothers me a whole lot.

Basically, you have "tough on crime" Republican prosecutors, attorney generals, politicians & like-minded Democrats pursuing death penalty convictions because it looks good on their resume but if evidence is presented of innocence or manipulated evidence from the cops or DA facts be damned, these soulless sociopaths move forward with it like Texas Governors generally do so.

Also for murderers who would rather have life-in-prison without parole over the DP would be helped if he unsolved murders elsewhere that either cops want the case solved for whatever reason enter in those kind of agreements. Green River Killer was probably about as low as you can go but avoided because there wasn't hardly any evidence to convict him on most of the victims. I think all they had was paint chips & dna on a couple of more recent victims iirc

On edit -- Speaking of Arizona death penalty convictions & flawed forensics this is a photo of the "Snaggletooth Killer"
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F237353842831751291%2F&ei=K78zVa6jLMPugwT9kYDICw&bvm=bv.91071109,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNG59DO-0d3IuD10NhWv665Ejsox2g&ust=1429541023909644

[spanone]

26. not me a people

[BlueCaliDem]

27. I don't support the Death Penalty. It's abhorrent for a civil society to have it.

We'll always have murderers among us, with or without the DP. That's never going to change and people are only fooling themselves if they believe otherwise.

The DP, sold to the American people as a deterrent, has failed to bring those numbers down significantly. Life without parole is a far better choice and less expensive, even when we add in money for rehabilitation. People on death row for decades BEG for the DP, so what does that tell us?

If this were truly a Christian nation, there'd be NO Death Penalty. Right there is proof in the pudding that we are NOT a Christian nation (which I use against so-called Christians who are pro-DP). Because Christ would never approve of the DP.

[yallerdawg]

30. What I appreciate from this polling...

is how Democrats have evolved on this issue and are responsible for the growing number of Americans opposing the death penalty.

The Republicans stay about the same -- but we knew that, didn't we?

The most disturbing thing is the acknowledgement of 63% of death penalty supporters that innocent people may be put to death. That alone should be 63% switching to opposing!

And now we have the news the FBI helped convict criminals with falsified testimony of forensic evidence of crime-scene hair analysis, including capital punishment convictions.

Somehow, we went from 'reasonable doubt' to 'probably did it' to justify executing our fellow citizens.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html

[libdem4life]

35. Probably another "pro" reason is that if there are mistakes, there's a good chance it's a black man

so... Just. Say. No.

[LWolf]

32. You, many of the people.

I'm not part of that "we."

I'm glad to see that majority declining.

[yallerdawg]

33. "We the people" is a recognition of our democracy.

If a majority of Americans oppose the death penalty, then we got an issue with our government.

I guess the issue we have now is with our friends, neighbors and acquaintances. The people.

[LWolf]

37. Yes.

In our democracy, majority rules. That majority is often exclusive.

[yallerdawg]

39. And our recourse is the judicial system.

This is the protection from "the tyranny of the majority." Many argue "right and moral" never change.

Of course, if you have a conservative court, you get conservative opinions. A different "right and moral."

Then we go back to elections matter!

[sarisataka]

34. Me the Person

Does not

[yallerdawg]

36. 40% of Democrats support the death penalty.

In 1996, it was 71%.

Another example of how things really do change.

Right here - us.

[Iggo]

42. You the People.

I never have and never will.