New Poll Finds that a Majority of Americans Favor the Death Penalty

According to a recent Reuters Poll conducted for the Death Penalty Information Center, the majority of Americans are in favor of the death penalty. Reuters noted, however, that nearly 40% of those interviewed felt that their moral beliefs would disqualify them from serving on the jury of a capital murder case. One thousand people were interviewed by Reuters.

A spokesman for the Death Penalty Information Center, which is opposed to the use of the death penalty, expressed some surprise at how high the figure was for those who felt they could not be on a capital case jury. "That says the death penalty is not as strongly embraced," Reuters quoted Richard Dieter as saying. Dieter is the information center's director.

Adding to the debate over the use of the death penalty was the finding that 87% of those polled believe that an innocent person has been put to death over the past 15 years and another 58% think that executions should be halted while the mistakes of the past are investigated. Dieter said that he feels there has been a "distancing by the American public from the death penalty."

However, Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of a group, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, that usually favors the death penalty, disagreed. Scheidegger, according to Reuters, asserts that surveys have shown consistent support for the use of the death penalty.

Other findings from the Reuters survey showed that nearly 70% of those interviewed did not think it was possible to eliminate mistakes in convictions and executions, and a majority did not think the threat of the death penalty would stop potential murderers.

Reuters notes that 124 people have been freed from death row since 1973 because evidence proved their innocence. The number of death sentences and executions in the United States have been declining. There are 38 states that have the death penalty. The total number of persons executed in those states in 2006 was 53. That was down from 98 in 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.