- 10/05/01

The Declining Support for Execution

By ANDREW KOHUTWASHINGTON - Rising public opposition to the death penalty has beenone of the few liberal social trends in recent years. But there issome reason to wonder whether the public's overwhelming enthusiasmfor executing Timothy McVeigh will stall or possibly reverse thisdevelopment. Every nationwide poll taken has found the vastmajority of Americans favoring the execution, scheduled for May 16.This comes at a time when the same nationwide surveys are findingdiminishing support for capital punishment since the early 1990's.The Pew Center's polls show backing for the death penalty slippingto 66 percent this year from a high of 80 percent in 1994. But ourmost recent survey also finds 75 percent favoring Timothy McVeigh'sexecution.A Gallup poll in April uncovered an even greater dissonance inopinion when fully 22 percent said they opposed the death penaltybut wanted to see Mr. McVeigh die. Will these Americans, in lightof the McVeigh case, turn back from their opposition to the deathpenalty in general?I don't believe they will. Growing reservations about capitalpunishment are now tied to broad social trends and new technologiesthat are raising doubts about the fairness of the process thatsentences people to state-delivered deaths.Opinion about capital punishment has ebbed and flowed with thecountry's ideological swings and with fluctuations in the crimerate. In the 1950's about two-thirds of the public favored capitalpunishment - a proportion similar to today's. But by the mid1960's, the heyday of American liberalism, most people wereopposed. Public support dropped to 42 percent, a 50-year low, in a1966 Gallup poll. But reactions against social dislocations andrising crime rates drove support back up to 51 percent by the endof the 1960's. Public enthusiasm for capital punishment increasedsteadily through the 1970's and 1980's in response to higher murderrates and as a reflection of more conservative times. By 1986,according to Gallup, support was 30 percentage points higher thanit had been two decades earlier. It reached a high point of 80percent in 1994, that very conservative year that saw theRepublican Party capture Congress.Since then, emerging doubts about fairness in the application ofthe death penalty have led to greater reservations about it.Reversals of death sentences after DNA testing have fueled concernsabout the ultimate miscarriage of justice. An NBC/Wall StreetJournal poll in July 2000 found the public sharply divided overwhether the death penalty was applied fairly, and only 32 percentof respondents in an ABC News poll said they were very confidentthat those on death row were actually guilty. The polls also showpublic support for suspending the death penalty until its fairnesscan be studied.At the same time, the public's thinking about capital punishmentas a deterrent to murder is changing. While the public stillconsiders deterrence the primary justification for the deathpenalty, an ABC/Washington Post survey released last month foundfor the first time in 15 years that a majority did not believe thedeath penalty lowered the murder rate. This survey also showed thatthe public found retribution to be a considerably less powerfulargument for capital punishment than deterrence.Religious belief is becoming an important factor in the public'sreassessment of capital punishment. Pew Center surveys this yearshow that people most often cite their religious beliefs as a basisfor their opposition. This is creating an unusual and robustcoalition of opponents, bringing together political liberals,ethnic minority groups and social conservatives, includingCatholics as well as white evangelical Protestants.Timothy McVeigh may be the poster boy for capital punishment forthe moment, but all the momentum is going the other way on thisissue. The magnitude of his crime and his lack of remorse haveenraged the public. But it is unlikely that the extensive coverageof his execution will actually reverse the new climate of opinionabout capital punishment. If anything, it may well raise theprofile of the issue, especially for the many Americans who nowhold new reservations about the death penalty.Andrew Kohut is the director of the Pew Research Center for thePeople and the Press.