A new sur­vey con­duct­ed by SoonerPoll has found that while three-quar­ters of like­ly Oklahoma vot­ers say they sup­port the death penal­ty in the­o­ry, a major­i­ty (53%) sup­port abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole, plus resti­tu­tion to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. Among every polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, more sup­port­ed the plan to replace the death penal­ty than favored keep­ing it, with a major­i­ty of Democrats (58%) and inde­pen­dents (57%) sup­port­ing abo­li­tion and a 48%-41% plu­ral­i­ty of Republicans favor­ing replac­ing the death penal­ty. A sim­i­lar poll from November 2015, short­ly after the failed exe­cu­tion of Richard Glossip, found 52% sup­port for replac­ing the death penal­ty with life with­out parole. The poll results reflect a pat­tern of soft­en­ing sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment among vot­ers in death penal­ty states. Recent polls in a num­ber of such states show respon­dents express­ing sup­port for the death penal­ty gen­er­al­ly, but favor­ing alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment when offered a choice of pun­ish­ments. A Florida poll ear­li­er this year report­ed that 62% of respon­dents pre­ferred some form of life in prison for those con­vict­ed of mur­der. In 2015, 54% of Pennsylvanians pre­ferred life in prison. A recent­ly-released Kentucky poll report­ed that 58% of respon­dents pre­ferred lengthy prison terms over death sen­tences, with 72% sup­port­ing a mora­to­ri­um on executions.

(S. Allen, ​“Majority of Oklahomans sup­port replac­ing death penal­ty with life sen­tences, poll shows,” The Oklahoman, August 6, 2016.) See Public Opinion.

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