Politics

A near-majority of Idahoans still favor the death penalty, but support is clearly dropping, a new Idaho Politics Weekly poll finds.

And on a related question about appropriate criminal sanctions for those who use illegal drugs, Idahoans are split over whether current laws are too strict, too lenient or just about right, pollster Dan Jones & Associates discovered in a new survey.

Finally, a bare majority say pornography is a public health crisis today.

Here is a short history of Idaho’s death penalty law.

Like in the rest of the nation, support in Idaho for executing murderers who commit heinous crimes has fallen over the years.

Jones finds in his latest survey that 40 percent of Idahoans say a better punishment for such murderers is life without the possibility of parole, 49 percent still support the death penalty (which is death by lethal drugs in Idaho), 7 percent want some other punishment, and 5 percent don’t know.

Men are usually tougher on criminal sentences than women, and Jones finds that in this case.

Fifty-eight percent of men favor the death penalty while only 42 percent of women want it.

Jones sees that a third of men want life without parole while 46 percent of women like that option.

There are definite political leanings on the question of capital punishment:

• 56 percent of Republicans want the death penalty; 34 percent want life without parole.


• 58 percent of Democrats want life sentences for murderers; 34 percent want capital punishment.


• Independents are split; 47 percent say death, 40 percent say life without parole.

It has been well documented across the country that the cost to the state to execute a murderer is far more over time than just keeping the person locked up, even for life.

And there are, of course, cases where a convicted murderer on death row has later been found innocent, or through some legal issues at least given a life sentence instead of death.

In fact, in recent years, two Idaho death row inmates have had their convictions overturned and have been set free. One man served 18 years before being exonerated.

On the other issues in the poll, Jones finds that 51 percent of Idahoans believe pornography is a health care crisis; 38 percent disagree with that assessment and 11 percent don’t know.

And 28 percent of Idahoans believe the punishment for illegal drug use is too lenient, 26 percent say it is too strict, 30 percent say about right, and 17 percent don’t know.

Jones polled 601 adults from Feb. 17-26. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.