59% Favor Death Penalty
Maryland is about to become the sixth state to abolish capital punishment following the passage of a bill that Governor Martin O’Malley is expected to sign. Most Americans still support the death penalty, but they're much more closely divided when asked if capital punishment actually deters crime.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 59% of U.S. Adults favor the death penalty, while 24% are opposed. Another 17% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
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The survey of 1,000 American Adults nationwide was conducted on March 22-23, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.