Public Opinion

Former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Craig Silverman recent­ly wrote about why he changed his mind about sup­port­ing the death penal­ty and expressed new fears regard­ing its future use. His op-ed was pub­lished on August 29, 2023 in the Colorado Sun. Mr. Silverman writes that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was a promi­nent issue in his cam­paign for Denver District Attorney, and he him­self pros­e­cut­ed death penal­ty cas­es and pub­licly sup­port­ed its use. But he writes that he now has ​“new­found sup­port for abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment” for rea­sons he char­ac­ter­izes as ​“per­son­al.” 

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has announced its forth­com­ing annu­al report, The State of Criminal Justice 2023, exam­in­ing the state of the American crim­i­nal legal system. 

The death penal­ty con­tin­ued its long-term decline in the U.S. in 2022, as Oregon com­mut­ed its death row and new death sen­tences and pub­lic sup­port for the death penal­ty remained near 50-year lows. But per­haps more dra­mat­i­cal­ly than any­thing else, the for­ti­eth anniver­sary of lethal injec­tion could be known as ​“the Year of the Botched Execution,” the Death Penalty Information Center said in its 2022 Year End Report.

In a year that fea­tured mas­sive cam­paign adver­tis­ing attempt­ing to por­tray legal reform­ers as respon­si­ble for increas­es in vio­lent crime, can­di­dates com­mit­ted to crim­i­nal legal reform or who promised to con­tin­ue statewide mora­to­ria on exe­cu­tions post­ed key elec­tion wins in the 2022 midterm elec­tions. Defying a pre-elec­tion nar­ra­tive fore­cast­ing a back­lash against pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tors and con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that fear of crime dri­ves polit­i­cal out­comes, reform pros­e­cu­tors were re-elect­ed to office and gained new footholds in coun­ties across the country.

Two nation­al polls have found that sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States remains near half-cen­tu­ry lows despite record-high per­cep­tion that local crime has increased.

The American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section has released its annu­al report, The State of Criminal Justice 2022, exam­in­ing the state of the American crim­i­nal legal system.

The per­cent­age of Americans who find the death penal­ty moral­ly accept­able remains near a record low, accord­ing to a new poll released by the Gallup orga­ni­za­tion on June 9, 2022. 55% of respon­dents to Gallup’s annu­al Values and Beliefs Survey told Gallup that they con­sid­er the death penal­ty moral­ly accept­able, frac­tion­al­ly above the record low of 54% in the orga­ni­za­tion’s 2020 sur­vey. The num­ber match­es the 55% lev­el of accept­abil­i­ty report­ed in the 2021 Values and Beliefs survey.

Support for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Louisiana has fall­en by sev­en per­cent­age points in the last four years, accord­ing to the 2022 Louisiana Survey by the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs at Louisiana State University.

Kentucky has become the sec­ond state in the U.S. to bar impos­ing the death penal­ty on those diag­nosed as seri­ous­ly men­tal­ly ill. On April 8, 2022, Governor Andy Beshear (pic­tured) signed HB 269 into law, as Kentucky joined neigh­bor­ing Ohio in exempt­ing severe­ly men­tal­ly ill defen­dants from cap­i­tal punishment.

Likely vot­ers in Clark County, Nevada over­whelm­ing­ly oppose the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against broad cat­e­gories of vul­ner­a­ble and impaired per­sons whom coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors have been try­ing to exe­cute, a new poll released by Vegas Watch on January 27, 2022 shows.