A recent Washington Post poll found that 60% of Maryland citizens support capital punishment with 32% opposed. But there was a caveat: when respondents were forced to give a choice between life without parole or execution for murderers, Marylanders supported life without parole over execution 49% to 40%. Opponents of the death penalty have long enjoyed pointing out that support for executions drop when life without parole sentences become an option to putting murderers to death. However, overall numbers of death penalty support or the more nuanced ones reflecting the life without parole option (from whatever polling agencies), are misleading at best in attempting to gain the public's true and accurate views of capital punishment.
That part sounds pretty good to me. If people are given a choice between the death penalty and life without, they choose life without. But the article goes on to describe how the same folks who say they oppose capital punishment, when confronted with a very heinous crime, opt for the death penalty.
For example, in October of 2009 Gallup conducted its yearly death penalty survey and found that nationally, 65% of U.S. citizens favored capital punishment for murder. Yet, incredibly, when New York City residents were asked a month later if they supported the death penalty for alleged 911 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed if found guilty, 77% sad "yes" while only 18% said "no" (USA Today/Gallup, Nov. 20-22, 2009). Politically, socially and culturally, NYC is a very liberal place. It is bluer than blue. Yet it decisively trumped the rest of the nation in support for the death penalty when a very real incident involving real evil was in play. And, I might add, one can't be a true foe of capital punishment if an exception is made for a particular individual (granted, a particularly bad one).
What's your opinion? What's the best way to get a fair reading on the popularity of capital punishment? If we give people examples of especially horrible crimes that have struck close to home, aren't we risking an emotional response? Isn't the reaction to an abstract case the true reading?
Here's another way to say it. What would the folks who favor the death penalty say if it were their child who committed a capital offense? Wouldn't some of them think twice about their choice? Wouldn't they be too emotionally involved to give a fair response? Isn't the reaction to an abstract case the true reading?
What do you think? Please leave a comment.
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