Are most people in favor of the death penalty?
• As evidence of innocence and racial bias in the application of the death penalty come to light, support for the death penalty is steadily falling. • In fact, a majority of New Yorkers support alternatives to the death penalty. In a poll released by Quinnipiac University in March 2003, 57% percent of New York residents favor the death penalty compared with 37% who oppose it. But when asked to choose between the death penalty or life without parole, people in New York favor life without parole 53% to 38%. • Nationally, 48% of Americans favor the death penalty compared with 44% who prefer life without parole, according to the same poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%.
