POLL: Washington State Voters Overwhelmingly Prefer Life Sentences to Death Penalty

A new poll of likely voters in Washington State shows that Washingtonians are nearly 3 times more likely to prefer some form of a life sentence to the death penalty as punishment for defendants convicted of murder.

The poll, commissioned by the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI), was conducted by Public Policy Polling and released on July 12, 2018. It found that 69% of likely voters in the state preferred some version of a life sentence as punishment for people convicted of murder, as compared to 24% who said they preferred the death penalty.

In a statement describing the poll results, NPI said “not a single subsample within the survey favored the death penalty… not even Donald Trump voters. … What this tells us is that there is broad agreement across the ideological spectrum for getting rid of the practice of putting convicted murders to death.”

The poll asked respondents: “Of the following list of choices, which punishment do you prefer for people convicted of murder: life in prison with NO possibility of parole, life in prison with NO possibility of parole and a requirement to work in prison and pay restitution to the victims, life in prison with a possibility of parole after at least forty years, or the death penalty?” The most preferred option was life in prison without parole, plus restitution, which 46% of all respondents supported. An additional 10% preferred life without possibility of parole, while 13% favored life in prison with parole eligibility after at least forty years. 8% said they were not sure.

Every political demographic preferred some version of a life sentence over the death penalty: 82% of respondents who identified themselves as Democrats favored one of the life options, as did 63% of Independents or supporters of a minor party, and 54% of Republicans. 48% of respondents who said they voted for Donald Trump preferred one of the life-sentencing alternatives, as compared with 46% who preferred the death penalty.

In 2014, Gov. Jay Inslee imposed a moratorium on executions, saying that “[t]he use of the death penalty in [Washington] state is unequally applied.” A bipartisan bill to abolish the death penalty passed the state senate and was approved in the House Judiciary Committee in 2017, but House Speaker Frank Chopp, a Democrat, did not bring the bill to a vote in the full House before the legislature adjourned.

“Five Republicans stood with us in the Senate,” said Reuven Carlyle, a Democratic senator from Seattle, “but the House leadership was still unwilling to bring it to the floor.”

Washington’s Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who along with his Republican predecessor Rob McKenna have urged legislators to repeal the state’s capital-punishment statute, said he was “not shocked by the numbers.” He said the public mood about the death penalty has “been changing quickly” and “we need additional legislators to help out. … This poll will further signal to them that not only is this the right thing to do, to abolish the death penalty law in Washington state, but is precisely what the people of Washington state want and expect their legislature to do.” (Click to enlarge graphic.)

Washington juries have not imposed any new death sentences in more than five years and the state last carried out an execution in 2010.