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America continues to be strongly supportive of the death penalty even though almost everyone believes that some innocent people are convicted of murder. However, support for the death penalty could fall dramatically if people believed that "substantial numbers" of innocent people are wrongly convicted of murder.

These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 1,015 adults surveyed between July 16 and 20, 1999.

Public attitudes to the death penalty are not set in concrete. They have changed in the past and they will probably change in the future.

Indeed, this new Harris Poll shows some softening of support for capital punishment, possibly as a result of recent media coverage of highly publicized cases where innocent people were released from prison many years after they were wrongly convicted. Several of these cases involved the use of DNA evidence that showed that the people convicted were not the murderers.

However, because support for the death penalty is so strong, it seems unlikely that it will fall back to where it was in the 1960s, when only a minority of Americans favored capital punishment.

Key findings of this Harris Poll include:

• A big 71% to 21% majority still favors capital punishment. This is less than it was in 1997 (when 75% favored it), but more than it was in the eighties, seventies or sixties (in 1965 a 47% to 38% plurality opposed the death penalty).
• On the deterrent effect, the public is split between 47% who believe capital punishment deters potential murderers and 49% who think it does "not have much effect." Surprisingly perhaps more people believed in the deterrent effect in the eighties and seventies, even though fewer people supported the death penalty then.
• A 43% plurality actually favors an increase in the use of the death penalty, while 21% favor a decrease and 28% favor no change. However, in 1997 fully 53% wanted to see more executions.
• Almost everyone (95%) accepts that some innocent people are wrongly convicted of murder. On average they believe that 11% (one in nine) of all those convicted are innocent.
• African-Americans have the highest estimates (18% on average) of the percentage of those convicted of murder who are innocent. Women (13%) think this happens more often than do men (8%), and Democrats (12%) more than the Republicans (7%).

It may seem strange that many people favor the death penalty while also believing that innocent people are convicted. However, another question shows that if everyone believed that many innocent people were convicted of murder they might not support capital punishment. A 51% to 38% of those who think some innocent people are convicted (i.e. 95% of all adults) say they would not support capital punishment if they believed that a "substantial number of innocent people are convicted of murder." It is interesting that estimates of how many innocent people are convicted of murder are lower among those who believe in the death penalty (8%) than it is among those who oppose it (15%).

However, responses to questions (like this) as to what people might favor in hypothetical situations are notoriously bad at predicting how people will react in the real world.

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

"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?"

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

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

Base: Innocent people are sometimes convicted of murder (95%)

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

Base: Innocent people sometimes convicted (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?"

This Harris Poll was conducted by telephone within the United States between July 15 to 20, among a nationwide cross section of 1,015 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with a sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 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 difficult or impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

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