GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ --The execution of Gary Graham, and the protest surrounding that execution, serve as lightening rods for questions regarding the value and fairness of the death penalty. Gallup has been asking Americans about the death penalty for almost 50 years. At this point, two-thirds (66%) of Americans favor the death penalty in cases of murder, down slightly from its high point of 80% in 1994.
Conversely, Gallup polling also shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans (91%) believe that, in the last twenty years, a person has been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death.
For full details on American public opinion about the death penalty see https://www.gallup.com/poll/topics/death_pen.asp.
Survey Methods
The results reported here are based on telephone interviews with a
randomly selected national sample of 1,050 adults, 18 years and
older, conducted February 14-15, 2000. For results based on this
sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum
error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or
minus 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question
wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can
introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion
polls.
