POLL: For the First Time, More Americans Believe the Death Penalty Is Applied Unfairly in the United States

The Gallup Crime Survey has asked about the fair­ness of death penal­ty appli­ca­tion in the United States since 2000. For the first time, the October 2023 sur­vey reports that more Americans believe the death penal­ty is applied unfair­ly (50%) than fair­ly (47%). Between 2000 and 2015, 51%-61% of Americans said they thought cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was applied fair­ly in the U.S., but this num­ber has been drop­ping since 2016. This year’s num­ber of 47% rep­re­sents a his­toric low in the his­to­ry of Gallup’s polling.

Support for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment remains at a five-decade low in the United States. Gallup found that 53% of Americans favor the death penal­ty, which is not sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant from the 54% and 55% sup­port record­ed over the last three years. When Gallup first asked this ques­tion in 1936, 59% of Americans sup­port­ed the use of the death penal­ty for con­vict­ed mur­der­ers. A major­i­ty of Americans have gen­er­al­ly sup­port­ed the use of the death penal­ty since then, except for the record-low 42% record­ed in 1966 and sev­er­al sur­veys between 1957 and 1972. Public sup­port of the death penal­ty peaked in 1994, with 80% of Americans in favor of the death penal­ty for a per­son con­vict­ed of mur­der. The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the United States sim­i­lar­ly peaked in the late 1990s, with 98 exe­cu­tions in 1999.

Gallup also asked respon­dents whether they believe the death penal­ty is imposed too often, about the right amount, or not enough. 39% of respon­dents think that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is not used often enough, while 28% of respon­dents believe it is both imposed too often or about the right amount. There are also par­ti­san dif­fer­ences. 62% of Republicans think that the death penal­ty is not imposed often enough, while 25% say it is imposed about the right amount. 52% of Democrats think that the death penal­ty is imposed too often, while 24% think it is used about the right amount. There is greater divide among Independents, as 37% think that it is not used enough, 32% think it is used about the right amount, and 26% think it is used too often.