Shifts in Death Penalty Opinion Reflected in Harris Poll

A recent Harris Poll on the death penalty had the following interesting findings:

Currently, 63 percent of Americans believe in the death penalty while three in ten (30%) are opposed to it. Five years ago, almost seven in ten (69%) believed in it while 22 percent were opposed to it.

Just over half (52%) of Americans believe that executing people who commit murder does not have much effect on deterring others from committing murder. Two in five (42%) say that executing people does deter others from committing murder...this is a difference from 1976. Then, almost six in ten (59%) believed executing people deterred others while one-third (34%) believed that it did not have much effect.

There is one issue almost all Americans agree on - 95 percent of U.S. adults say that sometimes innocent people are convicted of murder while only 5 percent believe that this never occurs.