A MAJORITY OF PENNSYLVANIANS HAVE LITTLE OR NO FAITH THAT THE GOVERNMENT WILL FAIRLY APPLY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
(Harrisburg, PA. October 8, 2025) Pennsylvania voters have little or no faith in the government to fairly apply the death penalty and overwhelmingly prefer some form of a life sentence over the death penalty, a new statewide poll has found.
The new survey of likely Pennsylvania voters conducted by Susquehanna Polling and Research as part of its Statewide Voter Attitude Survey found that 58% of Pennsylvanians believe a life sentence is the most appropriate punishment for people convicted of murder. That was double the number who indicated that they preferred the death penalty.
Asked “Which punishment do you believe is the most appropriate for people convicted of murder,” the largest number of respondents, 38%, answered life in prison with no possibility of parole. 12% of respondents said life in prison with a chance for parole after at least 40 years was the most appropriate punishment and an additional 8% favored life in prison with a chance of parole after at least 20 years. Only 29% responded that the death penalty was the most appropriate punishment for murder.
The poll was the first to survey Pennsylvania voters’ attitudes towards capital punishment since Governor Josh Shapiro announced in February 2023 that he would continue Pennsylvania’s moratorium on executions and invited the legislature to send him a bill to abolish the state’s death penalty. The poll results show a marked decline in the percentage of Pennsylvanian’s who prefer the death penalty compared to other sentencing alternatives.
A 2015 statewide poll conducted by Public Policy Polling shortly after then Governor Tom Wolf imposed a moratorium on executions found that 54% of respondents preferred some form of life sentence as the appropriate punishment for murder, compared to 42% who preferred the death penalty. The 29-percentage-point gap between today’s voters’ preference for alternatives to the death penalty reflects a striking 17-percentage-point shift away from the death penalty over the course of that ten-year period.
Although the Susquehanna poll found partisan differences in sentencing preferences, fully two-thirds of likely voters who expressed an opinion on the question preferred one of the life sentencing alternatives over the death penalty.
Those who identified themselves as Democrats were six times more likely to prefer some version of a life sentence rather than the death penalty (76% to 12%) and Independents preferred life sentences by a margin of 41 percentage points (64% to 23%). Republicans preferred the death penalty to life sentencing alternatives by 48% to 37%.
The Susquehanna Voter Attitude Survey also found that Pennsylvanians do not trust the government to fairly administer the death penalty. More than half of likely voters who were asked “How much do you trust the government to apply the death penalty fairly and without bias or favoritism?” responded that they either did not trust the government at all (26%) or trusted it “only a little” (25%). An additional 7% indicated they were unsure how much they trusted the government with capital punishment. Overall, 57% of likely voters — including nearly two thirds of Democrats (66%), 59% of Independents, and nearly half of Republicans (49%) — doubted whether government could be trusted to apply the death penalty fairly and without bias or favoritism.
Only 5% of respondents trusted the government “completely” with the death penalty, while 19% said they had “a great deal” of trust. Another 19% of respondents said they placed “a fair amount” of trust in the government to apply capital punishment fairly and without bias or favoritism.
The survey also explored what respondents considered to be “the primary reasons” why respondents believed their choice of sentence was the most appropriate punishment. The top reasons offered by those who preferred the death penalty were that they believed it “serves as a deterrent to others” (44% of death penalty supporters) and that “I believe in an eye for an eye” (40%). 45% of respondents who said that they preferred a life sentence over the possibility of a death sentence said that they believed “the risk of executing an innocent person is too high.” 34% responded that “It is morally or ethically wrong to take a life.” 19% indicated they preferred alternatives to the death penalty because “I am pro-life.”
The responses to the polling on primary reasons reveals that death penalty support in Pennsylvania is based in substantial part on popular misconceptions about capital punishment.
- While a significant number of Pennsylvanians said that one of the primary reasons they prefer the death penalty is that capital punishment deters murder, the facts suggest otherwise. Murder rates, mass killings, killings of police officers, and rates of gun deaths are all historically higher in states with the death penalty than in states with no death penalty.
- Although studies consistently show that states with the death penalty spend tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars more than they would for non-capital sentencing alternatives, 27% of those who said they preferred the death penalty mistakenly believed that capital punishment was more cost-effective than a life sentence.
- A quarter of death penalty supporters also indicated that their support for the death penalty was grounded in the belief that execution provided a sense of closure or justice for the victims’ families. However, the data actually show that the most likely outcome of a capital case once a death sentence is imposed is that, after years of litigation, the conviction or death sentence is overturned and in the cases that do result in execution, and that victims’ family members in states without the death penalty are able to attain a sense of finality and move forward with healing more quickly. Studies reveal that only a tiny fraction of victims’ families report that executions helped them achieved closure.
The poll also found that voters across the political spectrum were very unlikely to vote against a candidate for office based solely upon their disagreement with the candidate’s position on the death penalty. 78% of voters reported that that they were very likely or somewhat likely to support a candidate from their political party with whom they agreed on most major issues despite holding a different view on the death penalty, or that disagreement on the death penalty would have no impact on their vote. That included 79% of those identifying as Republicans, 76% of Democrats, and 82% of Independents.
White voters and male voters were the most likely to indicate that they would continue to support candidates with whom they disagreed on the death penalty. 76% of men said they were likely to support those candidates, with an additional 5% saying the disagreement would have no impact on their support. Among White voters, those numbers were 75% and 5%.
The impact of disagreement with a candidate’s views on the death penalty was most pronounced among the demographic groups historically least supportive of capital punishment: African Americans and Latinos. Black voters preferred life sentencing alternatives to the death penalty by a 48-percentage-point margin, 65% to 17%. While two-thirds of Black voters said that they would still support a candidate with whom they agreed on most other major issues, 18% said they were unlikely to support a candidate who held a different view on the death penalty. Latino voters preferred life sentencing alternatives to the death penalty by a 47-percentage-point margin, 67% to 20%. 70% indicated that differing views on the death penalty would not change their support for a candidate with whom they otherwise agreed on major issues. However, nearly one quarter of Latino voters (24%) said they would be unlikely to support a candidate with whom they disagreed on the death penalty.
Susquehanna Polling and Research interviewed 704 randomly selected registered voters across Pennsylvania during the week of September 22-28, 2025, speaking with respondents through live telephone interviews. 45% of respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 44% as Republicans, and 11% as Independents or other political affiliation. The poll, which had a margin of error of +/-3.7%, was sponsored by the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, Pennsylvanians Against the Death Penalty, and the Death Penalty Policy Project.