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American Morning

Majority of Americans Still Support Death Penalty

Aired May 30, 2001 - 11:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: What are the American people saying about the death penalty? Gallup poll editor in chief Frank Newport joins us from Princeton, New Jersey with the results of Gallup's latest poll.

Frank, good morning.

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR IN CHIEF, GALLUP POLL: Good morning, Stephen. As we've said before, we've been tracking American's attitudes on the death penalty now for actually, over 60 years. We've really got a range. I think this is important to kind of explain to people that support for the death penalty, although always in the majority, to some degree depends on the circumstances.

Let's give you the top and the bottom range here and kind of show you where America stands. This is in situation for McVeigh. We just asked this a week or two ago: 80 percent of Americans say yes, they support the use of the death penalty in this particular case. So, that is kind of the upper range. Look at that, only 16 percent of all Americans opposed it in this situation.

This is our more standard measure that we have been asking for those 60 years: do you favor the death penalty in cases of murder? And when ask it that way, two-thirds of Americans, and then down here at the bottom range, if we ask a question where we say: Do you favor death penalty in murder or guaranteed life with no possibility of parole, explicitly giving people that option, your death penalty support goes down to just 52 percent.

So really, this is the range we're operating in. Although we have up to 80 percent in a specific case, down to 52 percent if you could really offer the public an alternative. As you can see, it's in the majority in all cases.

Now, let's look at a trend on that middle one, that's our standard Gallup measure, we'll call. We'll take it back to the '50s. It has gone up and down over time. The low point for support for the death penalty came in 1966. There were no executions at that period of time. However, it started to go back up again reached all-time high point just seven years ago in 1994, and as we said more recently, 65 percent. By the way, all through this last year, it's been stuck at about 65, 67 percent. The McVeigh publicity really hasn't affected support, at least over the last 12 months, Finally one last point, interesting question: Is the death penalty applied too often, not enough, or about the right amount in America today? And look at this, 21 percent say too often, but over here, 38 percent of Americans not only support the death penalty, but Stephen and Daryn, they say it's not used frequently enough in America today.

That's an update on American public opinion on the death penalty.

Stephen, Daryn, back to you.

FRAZIER: Fascinating, Frank, especially in light of all the new revelations about DNA testing and how some people who were sentenced to death have been freed after new evidence was released.

NEWPORT: That's right, and that's one of the reasons we think that we have come down some from that 80 percent peak in 1994. One of the reasons it's come down probably is because of some of that evidence, but even with all of that data, as you just saw, two-thirds of Americans in our basic question say they support it.

FRAZIER: Indeed, Frank Newport in Princeton, thanks so much, Frank.

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