Poll finds steady support for death penalty<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-images\/0602\/chamber.jpg\")
Support for the death penalty remains high among Californians, with those favoring capital punishment outnumbering opponents by a 2-1 margin, according to a Field Poll scheduled for release today.<\/p>\n
In the wake of two recent executions, support neither rose nor fell much from levels reported by the polling organization since 2000.<\/p>\n
The latest poll showed support to be appreciably lower, however, than it was during the mid-1980s, when crime spiked nationally and became the dominant political issue.<\/p>\n
Opinions also appear to have softened on issues such as executing minors, which the state hasn’t permitted in modern times and the U.S. Supreme Court abolished a year ago, as well as on questions such as whether the death penalty is fairly carried out.<\/p>\n
As recently as two years ago, Californians were strongly convinced that the death sentencing process was fair and error-free. Today, they think so by a narrower margin of 48 percent to 39 percent.<\/p>\n
The polling organization claims a sampling error rate of plus or minus 4.5 points for all adults polled and plus or minus 5.5 points for registered voters polled.<\/p>\n
“Opinions on the death penalty are solidly in support, same thing as abortion,” said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo, who said no reversal appears imminent on either issue.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, he said, public opinion leaves room for changes in the way both procedures are carried out.<\/p>\n
The poll of 500 California adults was conducted Feb. 12-26, soon after the state’s executions of Stanley Tookie Williams and Clarence Ray Allen. The polling coincided with on-again, off-again preparations to execute Michael Angelo Morales on Feb. 21.<\/p>\n
Public reaction pinpointed on the aborted Morales execution was charted by a separate Field Poll, conducted Feb. 22-26. The response was not strong on either side of the Morales debate.<\/p>\n
Although 46 percent of poll respondents said the state should have administered the lethal injection to Morales despite its inability to comply with a judge’s orders, 41 percent said a postponement was the correct decision. The execution has been put on hold until the results of a May court hearing on the injection procedure.<\/p>\n
[more<\/a>]\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a poll conducted during the time the Michael Morales sentence confusion was taking place, people in the state remain strongly in favor of capital punishment....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-california","category-law-and-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}