The Harris Poll^® #2, January 7, 2004

More Than Two-Thirds of Americans Continue to Support the Death Penalty

They support it even though only a minority thinks it is a deterrent and almost everyone believes that innocent people are sometimes convicted of murder.
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Support for the death penalty remains very strong in the United States, even though almost everyone believes that innocent people are sometimes convicted of murder, and only a minority believes it is a deterrent.

The last few years have seen many reports of people being released from prison after DNA tests showed they were innocent of murders or rapes for which they had been wrongly convicted many years before. The state of Illinois has imposed a moratorium on capital punishment. But a large 69% to 22% majority of the public still favors capital punishment and this majority is actually somewhat higher than it was in 2001 and in 2000 (when it had fallen to 64% to 25%).

This majority support for the death penalty holds even though almost everyone (95%) believes that innocent people are sometimes convicted of murder. On average they believe that 11% of all those convicted are innocent. But the two-thirds of the public who support the death penalty seem to feel that that is an acceptable price to pay.

Certainly, there are some inconsistencies in public attitudes toward the death penalty, as there are on many issues. Only just over one third of the public (37%) say, when asked, that they would still support the death penalty if they believed "that quite a substantial number of innocent people are convicted of murder" and about half (47%) say they would oppose it. But if 11% are wrongly convicted, is that not "substantial"?

Based on this and other polls, it seems very unlikely that a majority of Americans will actually oppose capital punishment any time soon, leaving the United States as the only western democracy which executes murderers.

These are some results of The Harris Poll^® of 993 adults, surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive^® between December 10 and 16, 2003.

Other interesting results of this poll are:

• Only 41% of all adults believe that the death penalty deters people from committing murder – the smallest number from among all of The Harris Polls that asked this question in the last 27 years.
  
• A 36% plurality would still like to see an increase in the number of executions (versus 21% who favor a decrease, and 33% no change).
  
• African Americans believe that, on average, 23% of murder convictions are of innocent people, compared to 9% among whites and 16% among Hispanics.

Humphrey Taylor is the Chairman of The Harris Poll^®, Harris Interactive.

"Do you believe in capital punishment, that is the death penalty, or are you opposed to it?"

Base: All Adults

"Do you feel that executing people who commit murder deters others from committing murder, or do you think such executions don’t have much effect?"

Base: All Adults

"In general, would you like to see an increase or decrease in the number of convicted criminals who are executed, or no change?"

Base: All Adults

"Do you think that innocent people are sometimes convicted of murder or that this never happens?"

Base: All Adults

(Mean, or average, responses)

"For every one hundred people convicted of murder, how many would you guess are actually innocent?"

Base: Believe innocent people sometimes convicted of murder (95%)

"If you believed that quite a substantial number of innocent people are convicted of murder, would you then believe in or oppose the death penalty for murder?"

Base: Believe innocent people sometimes convicted of murder (95%)

* This represents 37% of all adults.

**This represented 47% of all adults.

The Harris Poll^® was conducted by telephone within the United States between December 10 and 16, 2003 among a nationwide cross-section of 993 adults (ages 18+). Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of ±3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

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Q655, Q660, Q665, Q670, Q675, Q680