PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR THE DEATH PENALTY: BEYOND GALLUP* by ALEXIS M.

Abstract

Recent survey data indicate that as many as 80 percent ofcitizens upport the death penalty for offenders convicted of homicide. These surveys, how-ever, typically pose abstract questions about general support for capital punishment rather than providing respondents with real cases to evaluate. Thus the level of support revealed by these surveys may be an artifact of survey design, and may provide an inadequate view of citizens ' willingness to impose capital punishment when confronted with actual cases. The re-search described here presented respondents with vignettes about and elic-ited judgments regarding the appropriate penalty for the murderers in the vignettes. The results uggest that in some cases, public support for capital punishment may be even stronger than indicated by surveys uch as those conducted by Gallup. In other cases, levels ofsupport seem to fall below what might be xpected in light of the Gallup data. The death penalty has been a significant part of the Amer ican response to cr ime since the early colonial period. According to the execution database created by M. Watt Epsy, the first confirmed colonial execution took place in Virginia in 1608 (Schneider and Smykla 1991:6). Since this initial execution more than 19,000 con-victed offenders have been put to death under civil authority. With few exceptions (e.g., treason), capital pun ishment current ly is re-served almost entirely for homicide offenders; in the past, however, i t was used for a wide var iety of crimes including kidnaping, rape, robbery, horse theft, and treason. More than 3,000 offenders cur-rent ly await execution on death row (Death Row U.S.A. 1995). The use of the death penalty has continued to stir vigorous de-bate and opposition. Executions in states that make heavy use of the penalty, such as Florida and Texas, are typical ly at tended b