A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts about the Death Penalty

According to a national public opinion poll (National Omnibus Poll) conducted in 2007 for the Death Penalty Information Center, in Washington D.C., the public is losing confidence in the death penalty.1 People are deeply concerned about the risk of executing the innocent, about the fairness of the process, and about the inability of capital punishment to accomplish its basic purposes. Most Americans believe that innocent people have already been executed, that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime, and that a moratorium should be placed on all executions.