(AFP) – Support for the death penalty among Americans has fallen to its lowest level in 55 years, according to a poll published on Tuesday. Forty-nine percent of US adults are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers and 45 percent are opposed, the Gallup poll found. The last time support for capital punishment was below 50 percent was in 1971, when it was also at 49 percent, Gallup said.
The Gallup poll of 1,200 adults was conducted between October 1-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. The polling began one day after the botched execution by lethal injection in the state of Tennessee of convicted murderer Christa Pike. Pike survived deadly doses of pentobarbital and was rushed to hospital in critical condition. She has since been returned to prison but said recently that she is in constant pain. Pike is the only inmate to survive after being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Laura Porter, executive director of the US Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said the polling shows the country is “at a pivotal turning point in public opinion on the death penalty.” “Americans have been horrified by the recent botched executions, as well as the proposal to livestream an execution,” Porter said. “At the same time, both Republican and Democratic governors have been granting clemencies at an increasing pace. The death penalty is being seen for what it is, an utter failure.”
US President Donald Trump recently canceled a controversial plan to livestream the firing squad execution of a convicted military base mass shooter. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced this month he was commuting all death sentences in the state to life imprisonment, a move that will affect more than 500 prisoners. Gallup said a majority of Americans over the age of 50 tend to favor the death penalty for convicted murders while younger Americans oppose it. It said 73 percent of Republicans back the death penalty, 50 percent of Independents and just 28 percent of Democrats.
There have been 35 executions in the United States this year, all by lethal injection. The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place. Nidal Hasan, an army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009 in an Al-Qaeda-inspired attack, is set to be executed at the military base by firing squad on December 3.
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