Americans Still Support the Death Penalty

A number of posts have discussed the death penalty.

J. Baxter Oliphant and Andy Cerda at Pew:

As the Trump administration and some states seek to expand the application of the death penalty, about two-thirds of Americans (66%) now favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while nearly a third (32%) oppose it.

• 68% also see the death penalty as morally justified for those committing murder, while just 28% see it as morally wrong.
• But a 59% majority say the death penalty is not a crime deterrent; far fewer (39%) say that it is.

Overall, support for the death penalty is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago, in April 2021 – though it is roughly equal to where it was in August of 2020 (65%).

A new Pew Research Center survey of 3,554 U.S. adults conducted July 6-12, 2026, also finds:

• A majority of Americans (73%) say there is some risk an innocent person would be put to death, though a quarter say that there are adequate safeguards in place to prevent this.
• About half of Americans (49%) say Black people are more likely than White people to be sentenced to the death penalty for committing similar crimes – and roughly the same share (48%) say this is not the case.