New Poll Finds ​“Strong Majority” of Floridians Prefer Life Without Parole Over Death Penalty

A recent poll by researcher Craig Haney, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California — Santa Cruz, has found that a ​“strong major­i­ty” of Florida respon­dents pre­fer life with­out parole to the death penal­ty for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der, even as many har­bor con­tin­u­ing mis­con­cep­tions about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that would pre­dis­pose them to sup­port the death penalty. 

In Haney’s sur­vey of more than 500 jury-eli­gi­ble respon­dents who were asked to choose between Florida’s statu­to­ri­ly avail­able sen­tenc­ing options, 57% chose life with­out parole, while 43% chose the death penal­ty, as the appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for a per­son con­vict­ed of mur­der. The pref­er­ence for life held true, Haney said, across racial groups, gen­ders, edu­ca­tion­al lev­els, and religious affiliation. 

The Florida results are con­sis­tent with recent polls in oth­er death penal­ty states, such as Kentucky and Oklahoma.

Dr. Haney found that Floridians held two com­mon mis­con­cep­tions about the death penal­ty that affect­ed their views on the issue: 68.9% mis­tak­en­ly believed that the death penal­ty was cheap­er than life with­out parole, and 40.2% mis­tak­en­ly believed that peo­ple sen­tenced to life with­out parole would be released from prison. Haney said ​“sup­port for the death penal­ty plum­met­ed” to 29% if the life sen­tenc­ing option was com­bined with a require­ment that these pris­on­ers be required to pay resti­tu­tion to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. In addi­tion, when Floridians were giv­en the option of divert­ing the $1 mil­lion per case cur­rent­ly spent on the death penal­ty to inves­ti­gate unsolved rapes and mur­ders, only one quar­ter still sup­port­ed capital punishment. 

Dr. Haney’s research also found that a major­i­ty of Floridians oppose the death penal­ty for defen­dants with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, do not believe the death penal­ty is a deter­rent, and agree that most reli­gious opin­ion oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Haney said ask­ing peo­ple sim­ply if they sup­port the death penal­ty is inad­e­quate because “[t]hat ques­tion offers a lim­it­ed and often flawed snap­shot of vot­er atti­tudes, cap­tur­ing only abstract sup­port or oppo­si­tion, but fail­ing to expose strong pref­er­ences and deep­er pragmatic thinking.”

Dr. Haney argues that it is impor­tant in pub­lic opin­ion research to offer respon­dents the actu­al pol­i­cy choic­es avail­able to them, rather than ask­ing more the­o­ret­i­cal ques­tions. ​“What this research demon­strates is that Floridians’ atti­tudes on the death penal­ty are com­plex. Their pref­er­ences change depend­ing on the range of options pre­sent­ed to them,” he said. ​“The go-to polling ques­tion, ​‘Do you sup­port the death penal­ty?’ rarely cap­tures the nuance of how vot­ers are think­ing about this issue.”