A May 2006 Gallup Poll exam­in­ing American opin­ion about the death penal­ty found that when giv­en a choice between the sen­tenc­ing options of life with­out parole and the death penal­ty, only 47% of respon­dents chose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the low­est per­cent­age in two decades. Forty-eight per­cent favored life with­out parole for those con­vict­ed of mur­der. The poll also revealed that over­all sup­port for the death penal­ty remains low at 65%, down sig­nif­i­cant­ly from 1994 when 80% sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

When asked whether the death penal­ty deters mur­der, 64% of those polled stat­ed that it does not; only 34% believe it does deter. This is a dra­mat­ic shift from the 1980s and ear­ly 1990s, when the major­i­ty of Americans still believed that the death penal­ty pre­vent­ed mur­der. 63% of those polled believe that an inno­cent per­son has been exe­cut­ed in the past 5 years, an increase over pre­vi­ous results.

(Gallup News Service, June 1, 2006). See Public Opinion and Life Without Parole.

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