Support for capital punishment little changed since 2008 despite recent blunders, but down significantly from mid-1990s high

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Americans’ support of the death penalty has changed little since 2008, even as shortage of lethal injection drugs has resulted in several high-profile botched executions this year.

About six in 10 Americans continue to support capital punishment, according to a Gallup poll released on Thursday.

Since the reinstatement of America’s death penalty in 1977, some executions have taken longer than they should have. But this year, three executions have taken over an hour, as states experiment with new drug combinations after an EU-led boycott dried up the supply of the drugs states previously used.

In July, an execution took nearly two hours when Arizona officials injected Joseph Wood with a combination of painkillers and sedatives. Clayton Lockett, convicted of rape and murder in Oklahoma, took 43 minutes to die during a lethal injection. In January, Ohio death row inmate Dennis McGuire took 26 minutes to die.

States where capital punishment is legal have struggled to find pharmaceutical companies willing to supply the sedative pentobarbital, which was once widely used, since European firms faced criticism for supplying execution drugs.

But botched executions appear to have done little to change Americans’ approval of execution. Sixty-three percent of Americans continue to support capital punishment, down just one percentage point from six years ago. Another 33% oppose the death penalty, up three percentage points since 2008.

Though Americans’ opinions held steady over the past six years, support for executions has slid considerably since the mid-1990s, from an all-time high of 80% approval.

Democrats are responsible for a majority of the shift: 49% support the death penalty now, down 26 points from 1994. Over the same period, support among Republicans slipped from 85% to 76%.

Support is nowhere near its lowest point. In 1967, fewer than half of Americans approved of the death penalty.

As in many surveys, changing a question’s framing changes the answer. Support for the death penalty drops when people have the option to choose life in prison without parole. When given the alternative, half of Americans favor the death penalty.

The poll, conducted between 25 September and 15 October, has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.