Just 27% of Houston-area res­i­dents pre­fer the death penal­ty over life sen­tences for those con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der, accord­ing to a new report by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. Harris County, the largest coun­ty in the Houston met­ro­pol­i­tan area, earned its rep­u­ta­tion as the death penal­ty cap­i­tal of America,’” the report says, hav­ing exe­cut­ed more peo­ple since 1976 … than any oth­er coun­ty in the nation.” At its peak, Harris County sen­tenced 44 peo­ple to death dur­ing a three-year peri­od (1994 – 1996). However, declin­ing pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has con­tributed to a drop in the num­ber of death sen­tences the coun­ty impos­es. Over the last three years, five peo­ple were sen­tenced to death in Harris County, with no new death sen­tences imposed in 2015. Texas is expe­ri­enc­ing a sim­i­lar statewide trend: while the state imposed a high of 48 death sen­tences in 1999, it imposed only two new death sen­tences in 2015. The per­cent­age of Houston res­i­dents who con­sid­er the death penal­ty the most appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for mur­der has dropped steadi­ly,” the report says, includ­ing a decline of 12 per­cent­age points since 2008. It attrib­ut­es the ero­sion of sup­port for the death penal­ty to recent rev­e­la­tions of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry sen­tenc­ing, inno­cent per­sons being freed from Death Row just before their sched­uled exe­cu­tions, and botched lethal injec­tions,” along with the com­par­a­tive­ly greater costs of seek­ing the death penal­ty, rather than life impris­on­ment, which the report says have risen dra­mat­i­cal­ly.” (Click image to enlarge.)

(R. Holeywell, Greater Houston is Becoming Increasingly Democratic, and Other Highlights From Our 2016 Survey,” The Urban Edge, April 25, 2016; Thirty-five years of the Kinder Houston Area Survey: Tracking Responses to a Changing America,” Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University, April 25, 2016.) See Public Opinion and Sentencing.

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