U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Line with NC Voters

Will the General Assembly Act to Resume Executions?

Raleigh, N.C. – In conjunction with today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of lethal injection as a means to administer capital punishment, the Civitas Institute released results of its April DecisionMaker poll revealing that North Carolina voters approve of the use of the death penalty by a greater than two to one margin.
 
The Civitas Institute’s April DecisionMaker poll reveals that 60 percent of North Carolina voters support the use of the death penalty in North Carolina, while only 27 percent are opposed. 12 percent were undecided.

“Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has issued its ruling, inaction by the General Assembly would be a further abdication of its responsibility.  While reasonable people may disagree about the use of the death penalty, voters deserve their voice on the issue through actions by their elected representatives,” stated Francis DeLuca, Executive Director of the Civitas Institute.

DeLuca further added, “The appointed members of the NC Medical Board unilaterally voided the death penalty in North Carolina.  It is a disservice to voters for this General Assembly to not address this issue one way or another during the upcoming session.”

The poll reveals that the use of the death penalty is supported by registered Democrats (49-36%), Republicans (76-15%) and unaffiliated voters (61-31%).  Men and women both support the death penalty (70-23% and 51-32%, respectively). 

The study of 800 registered voters was conducted April 9-10 by TelOpinion Research of Alexandria, Virginia. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general election or were newly registered voters since 2006. The voters were interviewed using live callers.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95% of the time, results from 800 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-3.7% of the “True Values.”  “True Values” refer to the results obtained if were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2006.