A major­i­ty of Oklahoma vot­ers favor abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty if it is replaced with a sen­tence of life with­out parole plus resti­tu­tion, accord­ing to a new poll com­mis­sioned by News 9/​News on 6. The sur­vey by the non-par­ti­san SoonerPoll​.com found that 52.4% of Oklahomans would sup­port abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty if the state replaced its sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with the alter­na­tive sanc­tion of life with­out parole, plus a require­ment that the inmates pay resti­tu­tion to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Nearly a third of respon­dents (30.5%) said they would ​“strong­ly sup­port” abo­li­tion if this alter­na­tive pun­ish­ment option were offered. The gap between sup­port for replac­ing the death penal­ty ver­sus retain­ing it as is was more than 18 per­cent­age points, with 34.0% of respon­dents say­ing they would oppose abo­li­tion. A poll com­mis­sioned by The Oklahoman in October that asked the gen­er­al ques­tion whether Oklahomans sup­port­ed or opposed the death penal­ty report­ed that 67% of Oklahomans expressed sup­port for the death penal­ty, down from 74% sup­port report­ed in a 2014 poll by the Tulsa World. The Oklahoman poll showed that, at the same time, half of Oklahomans favored a mora­to­ri­um on the state’s death penal­ty. ​“A lot of peo­ple are in sup­port of the death penal­ty right now, because they were nev­er giv­en an alter­na­tive,” said Bill Shapard, founder of SoonerPoll​.com. ​“Right now the death penal­ty is real­ly the only alter­na­tive to those who have com­mit­ted some of the worst crimes in our soci­ety. But yet, now we are giv­en an alter­na­tive, peo­ple are open to that.” The results of the Oklahoma polls are con­sis­tent with nation­al polls, which find that respon­dents say they sup­port the death penal­ty in the abstract, but pre­fer life with­out parole over the death penal­ty when offered a choice between the two.

The most recent polls polls have been con­duct­ed against the back­drop of ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into a series of irreg­u­lar­i­ties in recent Oklahoma exe­cu­tions. Oklahoma cor­rec­tions offi­cials vio­lat­ed the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­cols in the botched exe­cu­tion of Clayton Lockett, in exe­cut­ing Charles Warner using a drug that was not autho­rized in its pro­to­col, and in the failed exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip, which was called off at the last minute when prison offi­cials real­ized they had obtained the wrong execution drug.

(“WEB EXCLUSIVE POLL: More Oklahomans Oppose Death Penalty If Given Alternative,” News9, November 18, 2015; G. Brewer, ​“New poll shows more than half of Oklahomans sup­port life sen­tences over the death penal­ty,” The Oklahoman, Nov. 20, 2015; G. Brewer, ​“Oklahomans give over­whelm­ing sup­port to death penal­ty, poll finds,” The Oklahoman, Oct. 26, 2015.) See Public Opinion.

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