How Many Americans Support the Death Penalty? Depends How You Ask. - The New York Times - 0 views
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The use of capital punishment has fallen to historically low levels in recent years. This year, Virginia became the first Southern state to outlaw the practice.
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Still, a solid majority of Americans continue to favor keeping the death penalty, driven by the conviction that it’s morally justified in cases of murder — even though most of the country recognizes that there are racial disparities in how it’s doled out, and an overwhelming majority admits that it sometimes results in the death of an innocent person.
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We can say all this with relative certainty thanks to a Pew Research Center poll released today. Sixty percent considered the death penalty acceptable for people convicted of murder, according to the survey of Pew’s online American Trends Panel.
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