Field Poll: Less voter support for death penalty (in CA)

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

As they have for more than five decades, California voters overwhelmingly support the death penalty - but in a marked shift, more voters now prefer that convicted murderers be sentenced to life without parole instead of death, according to the latest Field Poll.

The survey, conducted this month, comes as criminal-justice-reform advocates are gathering signatures for a 2012 ballot measure that would ban capital punishment in California.

The poll shows they have their work cut out for them: A solid 68 percent of voters favor keeping the death penalty, with conservatives overwhelmingly in support and nearly half of liberals opposed. But for the first time since the poll began asking the question 11 years ago, more voters - 48 percent - say they would prefer that someone convicted of first-degree murder serve life without the possibility of parole. Forty percent prefer the death penalty.

Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo noted that 11 years ago, 44 percent of those polled said they preferred death as punishment for first-degree murder and only 37 percent in favored life in prison. Last year, it was nearly evenly split.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/29/BAN51LAPF4.DTL

[harmonicon]

1. fucking hell...

and, still, I had to detail to some guy today why I never want to move back to the US. (for the record, capital punishment was reason #2, behind the #1 reason of denying the fact that health care is a human right).

[saras]

2. It's still a death penalty - it just takes longer

Your penalty is that you don't get to do anything else until you die except wait.

It's too bad our justice system is nowhere this reasonable.

[Stargleamer]

3. I don't know why this would be on the ballot. . .

while legalizing gay marriage in California won't be. I think legalizing gay marriage in California has a much stronger chance of succeeding than this does.