Poll: 6 in 10 Americans believe death penalty should be legal
- Poll: 62% of Americans believe the death penalty should be legal
- Fewer than half (45%) of Black Americans support capital punishment
- Executions have been on the decline since the late 1990s
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(NewsNation) — A large majority of Americans believe the death penalty should be legal, according to a poll.
The YouGov survey conducted in April shows 62% of Americans hold the belief, including a majority of both Democrats (51%) and Republicans (80%). Among age groups, the viewpoint is most likely to be held by 30- to 44-year-olds, 66% of whom said the death penalty should be legal.
White (66%) and Hispanic Americans (62%) are more likely than Black Americans (45%) to support the death penalty.
The YouGov poll is in line with one from the Pew Research Center in 2021, which also found 6 in 10 Americans believe the death penalty should be legal.
Respondents in both surveys were concerned about the fairness of the death penalty and whether it is applied equally to people of different races, class and genders.
In the YouGov poll, 61% said poor people are more likely to receive the death penalty than wealthy people who commit equivalent crimes. Additionally 43% said Black people are more likely to receive the death penalty than white people, while 37% said Black and white people are equally likely to get the death penalty for the same crimes.
In the Pew poll, 56% of respondents said Black people are more likely than white people to be sentenced to death for equivalent crimes.
Just 24% of Americans in the YouGov believe the death penalty is a “cruel and unusual punishment” — a phrase included in the Eighth Amendment prohibition of certain types of punishments.
A majority of Americans believe the death penalty should be applied in cases of first-degree murder (56%), but less than half say it should applied in felony murder (43%), second-degree murder (30%), and voluntary (20%) and involuntary manslaughter (9%) cases.
While public opinion of the death penalty is generally favorable, death sentences and executions have trended downward since the 1990s, according to Pew. Statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Death Penalty Information Center show that 17 people were put to death in 2020, the fewest since 1991.
