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Tag Archives: death penalty

California’s Death Penalty: Unusual but Not Cruel

Big Government contributor Charles C. Johnson writes against California’s bid to abolish capital punishment in the Los Angeles Times. He thanks Big Government contributor and past assemblyman Chuck Devore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation for the Texas and California death penalty comparisons.

With a drug cocktail that puts death row inmates to sleep, California’s capital punishment can hardly be said to be cruel — but it is so unusual that death row inmates in the Golden State routinely die of old age or by suicide. When, or more likely if, justice comes, it doesn’t come

Read the rest at Big Government

Overwhelmingly, Americans Favor Capital Punishment

via Rasmussen Reports:

Support for the death penalty remains high, and adults are a bit more confident that capital punishment helps deter crime than they were a year ago.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national survey shows that 63% of American Adults favor the death penalty, while 25% oppose it. Another 12% are undecided.

The number of adults who support the death penalty is virtually identical to surveys conducted last June and in November 2009. [...]

Men are more supportive than women of the death penalty and feel more strongly that it helps deter crime. Adults under 30 are less supportive of capital punishment than their elders and more doubtful about its impact on crime.

Seventy percent (70%) of whites favor the death penalty, compared to 46% of blacks and 36% of adults of other races. But a plurality (45%) of those of other races agree with 50% of whites that capital punishment is a deterrent to crime. Sixty-two percent (62%) of blacks disagree.

Most Republicans (81%) and adults not affiliated with either major political party (64%) support the death penalty. Democrats share that support but by a much narrower 45% to 33% margin. But then 59% of Democrats don’t think capital punishment helps deter crime, while 68% of Republicans and a plurality (46%) of unaffiliateds think it does have that effect.